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THE NEW EMPIRE 



THE NEW EMPIRE 



BY 



BROOKS ADAMS 

AUTHOR OF " THB LAW OF CIVILIZATION AND DECAY 
"AMERICA'S ECONOMIC SUPREMACY/' ETC. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Lro. 
1902 

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HARVARD 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 

OCT 24 I960 




Bv THE IIACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and dcctr o t y ped October, zgoe. 



J. 8. Oudiing ft Go. — Berwick * Smtfll 
Norwood UMi. UAA. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

Last spring I undertook to prepare for publicatioB 
several essays and addresses which I supposed were 
connected together closely enough to present a con- 
secutive chain of thought On attempting an arrange- 
ment I found that I was mistaken, and that to be 
understood I must recast the whole. When I reached 
this conclusion it was too late to withdraw from the 
task, and the consequence has been that I have writ- 
ten the following volume much faster than I have 
ever before done similar work. I fear that the liter- 
ary form may have suffered, but I apprehend that, in 
substance, the book is comprehensible. 

All my observations lead me to the conclusion that 
geographical conditions have exercised a great, possi- 
bly a preponderating, influence over man's destiny. 
I am convinced that neither history nor economics 
can be intelligently studied without a constant refer- 
ence to the geographical surroundings which have 
affected different nations. I therefore make no 
apology for having dwelt upon geography, but I wish 
to say a word concerning my maps. 

To illustrate my text thoroughly I should need to 
publish an atlas. This being impossible, I have con- 
tented myself with presenting a few rough sketches, 
on a small scale, to accentuate the more salient 
theories. Should any one be enough interested in 

••• 
lU 



iv PREFATORY NOTE 

the subject to examine into details, he will have to 
resort to special works. I regret to say this is not 
easy, as the collections of maps in American libraries 
are surprisingly defective. My greatest difficulty has 
lain here. In maps dealing with so large an area 
upon so small a scale I have not aimed at technical 
accuracy. The Mongol invasions, for example, are 
only summarily indicated, so as to show, in a general 
way, the limits of the incursions, and the paths fol- 
lowed. I have even had to abandon at times the 
scale. My effort has been to convey an idea. I 
know not if I have succeeded, for I have had no 
precedent to guide me. Maps ordinarily represent 
repose, but I have tried to suggest motion by colored 
lines drawn from fixed bases to an ever-changing seat 
of empire. In civilization nothing is at rest, least of 
all the circulation, and the arteries through which that 
circulation flows vary in direction from generation to 
generation. As they fluctuate, so do the boundaries 
of states. 

I have marked the southern routes in red, the 
northern in green, so that the migration of trade may 
be read on each map at a glance. Had the condi- 
tions of publication admitted, it would have been easy 
to show by colors how one political organism has 
melted into another, as the displacement of the centre 
of international exchanges has caused a recentrali- 
zation of the territory tributary to local markets. 
\ I believe it to be impossible to overestimate the 
1 effect upon civilization of the variations of trade- 
' routes. According to the ancient tradition the whole 
valley of the S)n:-Daria was once so thickly settled 
that a nightingale could fly from branch to branch of 



PREFATORY NOTE V 

the fruit trees, and a cat walk from wall to wall and 
housetop to housetop, from Kashgar to the Sea of 
Aral. From the remains he saw, Schuyler judged 
the legend to be true.^ Bagdad also was once the 
most splendid capital of the world. The reason is 
explained by the description which Marco Polo has 
left of the ships which, even in his day, sailed from 
the great port of Hormus, at the mouth of the 
Persian Gulf. "The vessels built at Hormus are 
of the worst kind, and dangerous for navigation, 
exposing the merchants and others who make use of 
them to great hazards. Their defects proceed from 
the circumstance of nails not being employed in the 
construction. . . . The planks are bored . . . 
and wooden pins . . . being driven into them, they 
are in this manner fastened (to the stem and stem). 
After this they are bound, or rather sewed together, 
with a kind of rope yarn stripped from the husk of 
the Indian (cocoa) nuts. . . . The vessel has no more 
than one mast, one helm, and one deck. When she 
has taken in her lading, it is covered over with hides, 
and upon these hides they place the horses which 
they carry to India. They have no iron anchors; 
. . . the consequence of which is, that in bad 
weather, (and these seas are very tempestuous,) 
they are frequently driven on shore and lost." 

In such ships men made short voyages, and freight 
rates were correspondingly high, with a probability of 
total loss. Powerful vessels, especially steamers, carry 
cheaply, fast, and directly, consequently intermediate 
stopping places are abandoned, and the caravan for 
through travel has ceased to pay. The main trade- 

1 Turkestan, I., 67. 



Vi PREFATORY NOTE 

route across Central Asia has thus been displaced, 
and so it has come to pass that Bagdad has sunk into 
a mass of hovels, and the valley of the Syr-Daria is a 
wilderness. 

The fate of the empire of Haroun-al-Raschid exem- 
plifies an universal law. 

BROOKS ADAMS. 

QmNCY, August 27, 1902. 



CONTENTS 

PACK 

Chapter I i 

Chapter II. • • 44 

Chapter III. 86 

Chapter IV 116 

Chapter V « . . 149 

Chapter VI 177 

APPENDIX 

Chronological Table to Chapter I. . • • . .213 

Chronological Table to Chapter II. . . « . . 220 

Chronological Table to Chapter III 223 

Chronological Table to Chapter IV. 226 

Chronological Table to Chapter V 231 

Chronological Table to Chapter VI 234 



YU 



LIST OF MAPS 

PAaNG PAGE 

Map showing Ancient Trade-routes i 

(To illustrate Chapter I.) 

Map showing MEDiiCVAL and Muscovite Trade-routes . 44 

(To illustrate Chapters II. and III.; comer map to illustrate 
pages 94, 95.) 

Harz Region 50 

The Mongol Invasions and the Modern Overland System 116 
(To illustrate Chapter IV.) 

Chinese War 1S9 



IX 



f 



INTRODUCTION 

During the last decade the world has traversed 
one of those periodic crises which attend an alteration 
in the social equilibrium. The seat of energfy has 
migrated from Europe to America. The phenom- 
enon is not new, as similar perturbations have oc- 
curred from the earliest times ; its peculiarity lies in 
its velocity and its proportions. A change of equi- 
librium has heretofore occupied at least the span of a 
human lifetime, so that a new generation has gradu- 
ally become habituated to the novel environment. In 
this instance the revolution came so suddenly that 
few realized its presence before it ended. Neverthe- 
less, it has long been in preparation, and it appears 
to be fundamental, for it is the effect of that alteration 
in mental processes which we call the advance of 
science. 

American supremacy has been made possible only 
through applied science. The labors of successive 
generations of scientific men have established a con- 
trol over nature which has enabled the United States to 
construct a new industrial mechanism, with processes 
surpassingly perfect. Nothing has ever . equalled in 
economy and energy the administration of the great 
American corporations. These are the offspring of 
scientific thought. On the other hand, wherever sci- 
entific criticism and scientific methods have not pene- 

s 



xii INTRODUCTION 

trated, the old processes prevail, and these show signs 
of decrepitude. The national government may be 
taken as an illustration. 

When Englishmen first settled upon this continent 
they came as pioneers, and they developed an extreme 
individuality. Thinly scattered in widely separated 
colonies along the coast, little independent commu- 
nities came into being which had few interests in 
common. Consolidation began late and took an im- 
perfect form, the conditions then existing generating 
a peculiar administrative mechanism. The organiza- 
tion reached after the Revolution was rather negative 
than positive. The people suffered from certain effects 
of decentralization which interfered with commercial 
exchanges. These they tried to remedy, but they 
deprecated corporate energy. They provided against 
discriminations in trade, violations of contract, bad 
money, and the like, and they made provision for the 
common defence, but they manifested jealousy of con- 
solidated power. 

Each state feared interference in local concerns 
more than it craved aid in schemes which transcended 
its borders, and accordingly the framers of the Con- 
stitution intentionally made combined action slow and 
difficult. They devised three coordinate departments, 
each of which could stop the other two, and none of 
which could operate alone. And they did this under 
the conviction that they had reached certain final 
truths in government, and in the face of the law that 
friction bears a ratio to the weight moved. 

Even with such concessions to tradition, no little 
energy was required to overcome the inertia of that 
primitive society, for on such societies tradition has a 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

preponderating influence. Patrick Henry well repre- 
sented conservative Virginia, and Henry denounced 
the Constitution day by day " as the most fatal plan 
which could possibly be conceived for enslaving a 
free people." Henry could not comprehend the 
change in the conditions of life about him, because 
he had been bred to believe that the institutions he 
knew were intrinsically good. He revered them 
much as he revered revealed religion ; as an end in 
themselves, and not as means to an end. Every 
considerable political innovation must thus affect a 
portion of the population, for men always live to 
whom a change in what they have been trained to re- 
spect is tantamount to sacrilege. This temper of the 
mind is conservatism. It resists change instinctively 
and not intelligently, and it is this conservatism which 
largely causes those violent explosions of pent-up 
energy which we term revolutions. ^ Still, changes, 
peaceful or bloody, must come, and it behooves each 
generation to take care that such as it shall have to 
deal with shall be accepted without shock. Intel- 
lectual rigidity is the chief danger, for resistance to 
the inevitable is proportionate to intellectual rigidity. 
The Romans were rigid, and the massacres which 
attended their readjustments are memorable. The 
slaughter of the Gracchi, the proscriptions of Marius 
and Sulla, and the lists of the Triumvirs are examples. 
On the other hand, Caesar miscarried because of too 
high intelligence. He measured circumstances ac- 
curately, and because he did so, he misjudged others. 
Had he comprehended the stupidity of Brutus, he 
would have killed him. With conservative popula- 
tions slaughter is nature's remedy. Augustus applied 



xiv INTRODUCriON 

it. He substantially eicterminated the opposition; 
then the new organization operated. 

Similarly the French, in emergency, have always 
resorted to massacre to overcome obstruction, from 
the crusades against the Albigenses in the thirteenth 
century to the Commune of Paris in the nineteenth. 
It was not only Saint Bartholomew, and the persecu- 
tions which followed the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, which brought about the Terror of 1793; it 
was rather a thousand nameless butcheries like those 
which occurred dining the reign of Louis XIV. The 
incapacity of the French to ameliorate their fiscal 
system generated an unequal taxation which pro- 
voked revolt, and revolt caused repression frightful 
in ferocity. At Rennes in 1675, as a punishment for 
insubordination, the town was given up to pillage, 
and la Rue Haute, the main street, was destroyed. 
The inhabitants, old men, women, and children, were / 

driven forth into the fields "without a refuge, with- 
out food, and without a place to sleep." They 
perished from exposure and want. 

Rome and France are extreme examples of con- 
servatism, but they illustrate the better the working 
of a law. AH administrative systems tend toward 
induration ; more especially political systems, because 
they are most cumbersome. Conversely, nature is in 
eternal movement. Therefore the disparity between 
any given government and its environment is apt to 
be proportionate to the time which has elapsed since 
the last period of active change. When a population 
is flexible, adjustment is peaceful, as in the case of 
the adoption of our Constitution, or the passage of 
the first English Reform Bill ; when a population is 



INTRODUCTION XV 

rigid, a catastrophe occurs, like the civil wars in 
Rome, or the Terror of 1793 in France. 

Measure the United States by this standard. Since 
the Constitution went into operation in 1789 every 
civilized nation has undergone reorganization, some, 
like France and Germany, more than once. And yet 
nowhere have all the conditions of life altered so 
fundamentally as in North America. 

In 1789 the United States was a wilderness lying 
upon the outskirts of Christendom ; she is now the 
heart of civilization and the focus of energy. The 
Union forms a gigantic and growing empire which 
stretches half round the globe, an empire possessing 
the greatest mass of accumulated wealth, the most 
perfect means of transportation, and the most deli- 
cate yet powerful industrial system which has ever 
been developed. By the products of that system she 
must be brought into competition with rivals at the 
ends of the earth. The nation, in its corporate 
capacity, has to deal with problems domestic and 
foreign, more vast and complicated than were ever 
before presented for solution. In a word, the condi- 
tions of the twentieth century are almost precisely 
the reverse of those of the eighteenth, and yet the 
national organization not only remains unaltered, but 
is prevented from automatic adjustment by the pro- 
visions of a written document, which, in practice, 
cannot be amended. 

For the present generation the manner in which 
change shall come is a matter only of speculative in- 
terest, since before the existing structure can crumble, 
those now in middle life will have passed away. To 
the rising generation it is of supreme moment, for 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

the forces at work are gigantic, and the velocity 
extreme. 

Man cannot shape his own environment, but he 
alone of all animals can consciously adapt himself to 
the demands of nature. He does so by education. 
This faculty is an incalculable advantage in the 
struggle for existence, for by education the young 
can be trained to dexterity in almost any manual or 
mental process. Intellectual flexibility may be de- 
veloped as readily as intellectual rigidity. Science 
has won her triumphs through such training. The 
scientific schools perform their functions well. Their 
discipline creates an open mind; scientific methods 
of thought are now paramount in our industries, and 
it is to this faculty that America, in a very large 
measure, owes her industrial success. 

It is an axiom that the manufacturer who is least 
bound by tradition is the man who, other things being 
equal, will succeed. He who can cast aside the prepos- 
sessions of a lifetime, abandon his old equipment, and 
adopt what is newest, is held to be enlightened. The 
doctrine is reduced to a rule of conduct. The rail- 
way manager reckons that his locomotives are capa- 
ble of a given amount of work. He extracts that 
work as fast as possible, because he can replace an 
old machine by a better. The British manager acts 
on the opposite principle. He rests his engines, re- 
pairs them, cares for them, and boasts that he can 
exhibit some relic of the time of Stephenson. 

Penetrate the recesses of British society, and one 
chief cause of this conservatism is disclosed. The 
nation is intellectually inelastic, and it cultivates 
rigidity by confiding its education to the clergy, who 



INTRODUCTION XVII 

are preeminently a rigid class. The result is that 
Englishmen fall behind. They own, for example, the 
South African gold mines, but they do not work them. 

In England the old processes of so-called liberal 
thought still prevail. In America these have been 
superseded in science, and in those walks of life 
which are regulated by scientific methods. They 
still survive in colleges, as distinguished from techni- 
cal schools, and colleges very largely shape opinion 
in the United States, not only on political, but on a 
great variety of other subjects. No better illustration 
of this tendency can be chosen than the attitude 
maintained toward history. 

History presents a double aspect : First, the com- 
mercial and literary; second, the educational and 
scientific. The man who writes a history either as a 
social or political speculation, or else for sale, differs 
from no other adventurer. He writes for a market, 
as another man manufactures for a market, and most 
of the best historical work has been done under these 
conditions. Thucydides, Tacitus, Caesar, Gibbon, 
and Macaulay produced their books for private ends 
or else for sale, and in either case the result was the 
same. No one bought who did not care to read, and 
no one read without the inclination. It was a trade 
in luxuries like the trade in spices. 

Modem educational and scientific history stands on 
a different basis. It is assumed that there are facts 
in the past which it imports all the world to know, and 
much money and time are spent in unearthing them. 
For many years governments, corporations, and in- 
dividuals have vied with each other in publishing 
archives and editing documents, while monographs 



• •• 



XVm INTRODUCTION 

on all sorts of special subjects abound; but no at- 
tempt has been made to digest what has been gathered. 
Meanwhile the mass of material is accumulating 
rapidly. Libraries are no longer able to buy and 
catalogue the volumes which appear, and he who 
would readintellig^ fltly n( iiist^rst learn to eliminate. 
Apparently itis assumed that the accumulation of 
facts for the facts' sake is an adequate end, and 
yet nothing serves so little purpose as undigested 
facts. A fact in itself has no significance ; neither 
have a thousand facts. What gives facts their value 
is their relation to each other ; for when enough have 
been collected to suggest a sequence of cause and 
effect, a generalization can be made which scientific 
men call a "law." The law amounts only to this, 
that certain phenomena have been found to succeed 
each other with sufficient regularity to enable us to 
count with reasonable certainty on their recurrence 
in a determined order. 

Science is constructed from such approximations. 
History as taught in our colleges ignores the ad- 
vantage of generalization, and discourages all at- 
tempts to generalize. Yet it may be doubted whether 
advantage accrues to any one from the mere accu- 
mulation of historical details. Unless reduced to 
order, so as to offer a basis of comparison, past facts 
bear little upon present events. The change of 
conditions impairs their relevancy. Certainly it is 
fatuous to burden the memory with them, for a 
gazetteer is fuller and more accurate than any human 
memory, and is always at hand. 

To such reasoning the teaching profession objects 
that their specialty di£Fers from all others in that it 



INTRODUCTION xix 

deals with human actions. These actions either are 
not regulated by the same laws which pervade the 
rest of nature, or, if they are, the causes of which 
they are e£Fects are so complicated as to elude us, , 
unless we gather a very much larger number of 
observations from which to generalize than we now ■ 
possess, or are likely to possess in the immediate - 
future. A dilemma is thus presented. Either human , 
experience cannot be formulated ; or, at best, it can 
be only by amassing more facts than the mind can 
grasp. In either case the same conclusion is reached. 
Generalization must be abandoned, and the collection • 
of ** historical material " must be accepted as the end ' 
for which so much money and time are spent. If this 
be true, it is doubtful whether the sums expended on ' 
historical research and on professional salaries might 
not be made to yield a better return. 

Possibly, however, professional historians are mis- 
taken in their estimate of the difficulty of historical 
generalization ; possibly, also, the reasons they allege 
against making the attempt are not those which 
influence them most. Still, as these reasons are 
seriously advanced, they must be seriously examined. 

On their face the objections proposed seem incon- 
clusive, for they rest on fallacious premises. They 
assume, in the first place, that human actions are the 
effects of peculiarly complicated causes ; and in the 
second, that an imperfect generalization is valueless. 
Both assumptions are incorrect. The causes which 
have combined to cast a single grain of sand upon 
the shore are infinite, and the infinite can neither be 
surpassed nor understood. We cannot understand 
what the sand is or how it comes to be where it liesi , 



XX INTRODUCTION 

and yet we can make geology useful. Also it is a 
maxim of science that results are obtained by approxi- 
mation through error, and that the truths of one gen- 
eration are the errors of the next. 

The scientific man accepts his limitations and does 
not expect to arrive at absolute verity. He observes, 
and when he has advanced far enough to begin to 
generalize, he formulates his ideas as an hypothesis 
to serve as a basis on which to work until some one 
has suggested something better. There is hardly a 
general scientific proposition which is not called in 
question, and it is precisely by such questioning that 
knowledge is reduced to a serviceable shape. 

For example, one of the most cherished postulates 
of science has been that " a thing cannot act where it 
is not," a postulate which Newton himself agreed to ; 
and yet that postulate is directly contradicted by 
gravity. Nobody can guess what gravity is, or how 
it operates, and yet laws can be formulated which 
enable us to use it for multifarious purposes. 

The atomic theory was at one time generally 
adopted, and now chemists are discussing whether it 
is not more of a hindrance than a help. The famous 
nebular hypothesis of Kant and La Place played a 
great part in astronomy, but it is conceded that there 
are fatal objections to receiving it as a solution of 
the secret of the formation of stars. The work of the 
astronomer is based on fictions. " In calculating the 
attraction of a homogeneous sphere upon a material 
point . . . the astronomer begins with two fictions 
— the fiction of a 'material point' (which is, in truth, 
a contradiction in terms), . . . and the fiction of the 
finite differences representing the molecular constitu- 



INTRODUCTION XXl 

tion of the sphere." ^ The theory of the conservation 
of energy is expected to " prove the great theoretical 
solvent of chemical as well as physical phenomena," 
and yet in regard to the planetary system Lord 
Kelvin has formulated his conclusions thus: — 

" I. There is at present in the material world a 
universal tendency to the dissipation of mechanical 
energy. 

" 2. Any restoration of mechanical energy, without 
more than an equivalent of dissipation, is impossible 
in inanimate material processes, and is probably never 
effected by material masses either endowed with 
vegetable life, or subjected to the will of an animated 
creature. 

" 3. Within a finite time past the earth must have 
been, and within a finite period of time to come the 
earth must again be, unfit for the habitation of man 
as at present constituted, unless operations have been, 
or are to be, performed which are impossible under 
the laws to which the known operations going on at 
present in the material world are subject." 

The axioms of mathematics are disputed. A school 
of geometers now conceive of space as curved, so that 
lines which we have regarded as straight may prove 
to be a closed curve, and parallel lines meet. "A 
whole pencil of shortest lines may [thus] be drawn 
through the same point." Moreover, mathematicians 
regard space as having various dimensions, so that 
the solar system in its march through the universe 
may be approaching regions where there will be four, 
dimensions.^ 

1 The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, Stallo, 297. 

2 See On Some Recent Advances in Physical Science, P. G. Tait. 



xxii INTRODUCnON 

The list might be prolonged, but to little purpose, 
as the principle is undisputed. All scientific men 
agree to the tentative condition of generalizations, 
and yet science advances, the proof being the control 
obtained over natural forces. If satisfactory results 
can be reached elsewhere by using well-established 
methods of observation and generalization, there 
seems no reason, at first sight, why the same methods 
should not be applied to humanity, especially as Dar- 
win drew his inferences regarding evolution by these 
processes. On considering more attentively, how- 
ever, the possibilities which are disclosed by such 
investigations, the hesitation of the universities ap- 
pears less inexplicable. Certainly no fundamental 
religious dogmas are threatened, since neither the 
attributes of the soul nor of the mind are in question ; 
but if communities of men are to be studied as though 
they were communities of ants, learned bodies might 
be forced into positions which would make untenable 
their present tacitly accepted platform of principles. 

Submission to tradition is one of the strong in- 
stincts. In primitive ages it is absolute; life is 
regulated by ritual. The code of Leviticus instructs 
men how to eat, and wash, and shave, and reap, and 
the law was changeless, to be kept by " thy son and 
thy son's son all the days of thy life." 

A religious truth, of course, cannot vary, for truth 
is immutable and eternal, and no believer in an in- 
spired church could tolerate having her canons ex- 
amined as we should examine human laws. But it is 
not only in religion that tradition wields power. It 
is often preponderant in politics, and a political prin- 
ciple is not seldom preached as a tenet of faith. Not 



INTRODUCTION xxfii 

SO very long ago the Anglican clergy maintained as 
orthodox doctrine the divine right of kings, and, to 
come nearer home, the language of the Declaration 
of Independence varies little from that of a Catholic 
council. The Declaration lays down an immutable 
law, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." The 
Church enunciates a verity in slightly different terms, 
but no more dogmatically, "This holy Synod doth 
now declare." Even in science tradition has not been 
altogether eradicated. Some years ago, on retiring 
from the presidency of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science, Professor Langley took 
the occasion to remonstrate against this tendency. 

"The final conclusion was irresistible, that the 
universal statement of this alleged well-known fact, 
inexplicable as this might seem, in so simple a matter, 
was directly contradicted by experiment. I had some 
natural curiosity to find how every one knew this to 
be a fact ; but search only showed the same state- 
ment (that the earth's atmosphere absorbed dark heat 
like glass) repeated everywhere, with absolutely no- 
where any observation or evidence whatever to prove 
it, but each writer quoting from an earlier one, till 
I was almost ready to believe it a dogma superior to 
reason, and resting on the well-known * Quod semper^ 
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, creditum est J " ^ 

Professor Langley went on to say : " The question 
of fact here, though important, is, I think, quite sec- 
ondary to the query it raises as to the possible unsus- 
pected influence of mere tradition in science, when 
we do not recognize it as such. Now, members of 
any church are doubtless consistent in believing in 

1 The History of a Doctrine, S. P. Langley, 20. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

traditions, if they believe that these are presented 
to them by an infallible guide; but are we, who have 
no infallible guide, quite safe in believing all we do, 
from our fond persuasion that in the scientific body 
mere tradition has no weight ? " 

Here lies the divergence between the scientific and 
the Uberal training. Professor Langley insists that 
nothing must be taken as fixed, and that the mind 
should be held open to proceed to successive general- 
izations as the range of observation expands. The 
College proceeds on nearly an opposite principle. 

The College assumes certain ethical premises, and 
the conclusions of study must be made to square with 
these. This is as it should be from the inductive 
standpoint, for the College is the offspring of the 
Church and the daughter of the mediaeval convent- 
Nevertheless such an assumption places liberal in 
antagonism to scientific methods, and especially be- 
tween inductive and ethical history the gulf cannot 
be bridged. 

If men are to be observed scientifically, the standard 
by which customs and institutions must be gauged can- 
not be abstract moral principles, but success. Those 
instincts are judged advantageous to animals which 
help them in their struggle for life, and those preju- 
dicial which hamper them. They are means to an 
end. So with physical peculiarities. A beast's color 
is good if it serves to protect ; and bad if it make him 
conspicuous to his enemy. Similarly with men. In- 
stitutions are good which lead to success in competi- 
tion, and are bad when they hinder. No series of 
institutions are a priori to be preferred to others; 
the criterion is the practical one of success. 



INTRODUCTION XXV 

The same rule applies to men themselves. They 
are the best who conform most perfectly to the 
demands of nature, or who, in other words, succeed 
best. Natm-e eliminates those who do not satisfy 
her requirements, and from Nature's decree there is 
no appeal. 

These generalizations can with difficulty be recon- 
ciled with any body of fixed ethical principles. Evi- 
dently they form a doctrine of expediency founded 
on necessity. The theory is that men will arrive at 
precisely the same end, in either case ; only by flexi- 
bility will they avoid suffering. In fact, nothing is 
more sensitive to the exigencies of an environment 
than a moral law. According to conditions of time 
and place murder, cruelty, piracy, slaving, polygamy, 
celibacy, deceit, and their like, have been exalted into 
virtues ; while it is not so very long since the Church 
declared the healing of the sick by scientific means 
and the taking of interest for money to be crimes 
before God. As the environment changes, those men 
are gradually selected who conform thereto ; the rest 
perish more or less miserably. The scientific educa- 
tion would tend to diminish the agony of adaptation. 

Followed to their root, also, the two systems of 
thought will be found to be as opposed in their prac- 
tical methods as they are in regard to the temper of 
mind which they propagate. The one is analytical 
and administrative, the other idealistic and slack. A 
few examples will explain the dijBFerence between 
them. 

Large public libraries are now admittedly in an 
unsatisfactory condition. Libraries may indeed spec- 
ulate in curiosities, or be used for amusement, but 



XXVi INTRODUCTION 

here they are considered only as educational institu- 
tions or workshops. Viewed thus, none are complete, 
for the books printed outrun the means of bu)dng, 
cataloguing, and housing. Administration has broken 
down ; and administration has broken down because 
it is unscientific. Men of liberal education have col- 
lected libraries who have never been taught to gener- 
alize. These men look on a book as a unit, precisely 
as in history they look on a fact as a unit. When a 
book is supposed to have a certain degree of merit, 
it is deemed worthy of purchase, almost regardless 
of its subject. Thus the whole range of knowledge is 
thrown open, and the result is bewilderment 

On no principle of generalization can the book, 
apart from ordinary books of reference, be considered 
as the unit. The subject is the unit, and the book 
has a value only in relation to its subject. A single 
book, like a single chapter, word, or fact, needs a 
context to explain it ; therefore a library collected on 
the basis of individual books must be incomplete, and 
an indifferent workshop, because no man can thor- 
oughly finish any task therein. To find all his tools 
he must ta*avel elsewhere, and everywhere he is met 
with the same difficulty, because all general libraries 
are collected on much the same system, and all dupli- 
cate each other. 

Supposing, however, that liberal education like 
science were based on a series of generalizations, a 
different result would be attained. The book would 
not then be regarded as the unit, nor of value as a 
thing in itself, but only of value in so far as it related 
to the contents of the collection to which it might be 
added. The department of knowledge would thus 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

become the unit ; and in growing the library would 
grow not by volumes but by departments. The next 
generalization would be uniting several libraries, 
covering many departments, under one management, 
so that their books might be mutually accessible 
and few duplicated. This generalization might be 
broadened indefinitely so as, at last, by an exchange 
of books of many libraries, to make an almost perfect 
collection in all important departments, and that at the 
lowest cost. 

Precisely the same phenomena are disclosed in 
museums devoted to the fine arts. Like libraries, 
museums may speculate in bric-a-brac, but the true 
function of an art museum is conceded to be educa- 
tion. The theory on which they have been formed 
has been a liberal a priori thtory. It has been taught 
that certain objects are in themselves beautiful, because 
they conform to a conventional aesthetic standard, and 
that such objects should be purchased for their own 
intrinsic merit, apart from the contents of the museum. 
Such a theory conflicts with the inductive method. 

If art be viewed as a product of an environment, 
art is, like language, a form of expression ; therefore 
a heterogeneous mass of pictures, laces, statues, porce- 
lain, and coins has no more significance than would 
have stray lines taken at random from the poets of a 
thousand languages and printed side by side. The 
carvings and glass of the cathedral of Chartres spoke 
as clearly and more emphatically to the mediaeval 
peasant than any book can speak to us, and we can- 
not appreciate that masterpiece unless we compre- 
hend the language in which the Church of the twelfth 
century addressed the people. To the Greek like- 



XXviii INTRODUCTION 

wise the coin had a meaning. We cannot exhibit a 
few Greek coins as a model of what coinage should 
be, for those coins would be unserviceable now. 
They convey no lesson unless they be read in the 
light of Greek economic civilization. 

Our architecture, when dealing with iron and steel, 
with matter of fact factories, railway stations, and 
warehouses, is admirable. When it strives after an 
aesthetic ideal, it is a failure ; and, logically, it could 
be nothing but a failure, because it is unintelligent. 

A body of material produced during certain epochs 
is arbitrarily selected as worthy, and from this mate- 
rial architects are thought to be justified in borrow- 
ing whatever may suit their purpose, or strike their 
fancy, irrespective of the language which their pred- 
ecessors spoke, or the ideas which they conveyed. 
The arms of a pope may be used to adorn the front 
of a New England library, or the tomb of the Virgin 
for a booth at an international commercial exhibition. 

If men would ta*anslate or adapt a poem, they must 
first soak themselves in the language and the temper 
of the poet, and artists who would borrow with effect 
must first be archaeologists and students of history. 
Approached thus, the heterogeneous collection of 
aesthetic objects can only be a stumbling-block. The 
value of the museum must be proportionate to the 
perfection with which it displays the development of 
the artistic side of any civilization, and the intelli- 
gence with which it offers the key to the form of ex- 
pression which it undertakes to explain. This is 
generalization. 

The same defective administration arising from 
imperfect generalization appears in the University. 



INTRODUCTION 

Until within about a generation the American College 
retained substantially the methods and the curriculum 
which had been in use when it served as a divinity 
school About 1870 an expansion took place, based 
on the theory of the intrinsic value of the fact, pre- 
cisely as the expansion of the library has been based 
on the theory of the intrinsic value of the book. The 
aim of the new University came to be to teach every- 
thing, little attention being given to the coordination 
of the parts. The result could not be other than 
wasteful and disjointed. Suppose two foundations 
each teach one hundred subjects, those subjects being 
substantially identical ; they obviously duplicate each 
other, while they divide their resources by one hun- 
dred. Suppose each, on the contrary, to teach but 
fifty subjects, the original hundred being distributed 
between them, they double their teaching power, 
and still offer to the public precisely the same 
field as before. They suppress waste and increase 
efficiency. 

The theory on which the modem University system 
rests is fallacious. The worth of the University lies 
not in the multitude of units taught, but in the coor- 
dination of parts and the intensity of effort. What 
our civilization demands is the maximum of energy, 
and that maximum cannot be attained when the money 
which would bring one department to the standard is 
divided between two. American universities would 
have now abundant funds for all necessary work of 
the highest grade were there no waste. They are 
poor because of bad administration. 

It is true that the worst examples of duplicate 
foundations are effects of the clerical a priori rea- 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

soning, yet, when all allowances have been made for 
sectarian narrowness, the fact remains that colleges 
do not attempt to add to their efficiency and stop 
their waste by intelligent cooperation among them- 
selves, as manufacturers would cooperate jwho did 
not mean to be ruined. They do not even go so far 
as to coordinate their instruction by departments and 
by sub-departments, so that every student who receives 
tuition shall receive it with that degree of intelligence 
which comes from knowing where he stands in regard 
to the sum of human knowledge. And yet such a 
generalization, at least in regard to departments, would 
be easy. Every science is so generalized that each spe- 
cialist can know at any moment how his part stands 
to the whole. If he need to broaden his sphere of 
knowledge by examining other branches, he can 
choose those most advantageous with celerity and 
certainty. The student at college is launched upon 
an unknown sea, like a mariner without chart or 
compass. He has little to guide him in ascertain- 
ing what departments are really kindred. Even the 
courses of history are often arranged according to 
the taste of professors, and with no relation to his- 
torical sequence. 

Take economics as an example. During the 
eighteenth century Adam Smith, having carefully 
observed the conditions which prevailed in Europe 
and especially in Great Britain, wrote a book ad- 
mirably suited to his environment, and the book met 
with success. Then men undertook to erect the 
principles of that book into an universal law, irre- 
spective of environment. Then others theorized on 
these commentators, and their successors upon them, 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

until the most practical of business problems has been 
lost in a metaphysical fog. 

Now men are apt to lecture on political economy 
as if it were a dogma, much as the nominalists and 
realists lectured in mediaeval schools. But a priori 
theories can avail little in matters which are deter- 
mined by experiment. 

Political economy as a dogma is as absurd as would 
be a dogma which taught an infallible way to manipu- 
late the stock market. Success in competition comes 
solely through a comprehension of existing conditions 
and the capacity to take advantage of opportunities. 
One community, such as Rome, may do well by rob- 
bery ; another, like Great Britain, when she enjoyed a 
monopoly of minerals and of manufactures, may flour- 
ish upon free trade ; a third, like Germany with her 
sugar policy, may find her advantage in attacking a 
rival by export bounties ; while a fourth may thrive 
by seclusion, as did Japan, as long as circumstances 
favored. No one can say a priori what will succeed ; 
the criterion is success. 

The inference is that if a man would study eco- 
nomics to some purpose, he must study them practi- 
cally, as he would any other business. He must 
begin by learning the principles of trade and finance 
as they are presented by actual daily experience, just 
as the soldier, the sailor, the lawyer, and the doctor 
learn their professions. Then if he wish to gener- 
alize, he can examine into the experience of other 
countries, past and present, and observe how they 
won or lost. In other words, he can read geog- 
raphy, history, archaeology, numismatics, and kindred 
branches, and extend his horizon at his pleasure. 



I 



XXxii INTRODUCTION 

Thus men work who expect to earn their bread in the 
walks of active life, but colleges do not classify. 

History, geography, and economics are related 
branches which mutually explain each other, and 
none of which can be well understood alone. They 
also aid each other, for the sequence of cause and 
effect sustains the memory ; and yet they are never 
taught together, although to learn the three combined 
would take little longer, and demand less effort, than 
to learn any one singly. It is a curious commentary 
on liberal methods, that geography, which is emi- 
nently practical, is only applied in military or possibly 
technical schools. There is, perhaps, no thorough 
collection of maps made on scientific principles in 
any public library in the United States. 

Lastly, it remains to consider how the introduction 
of inductive methods in social matters would affect 
the community at large by the destruction of its 
ideals ; for ideals would probably suffer. 

He who is dominated by tradition exalts the past 
In the concrete case of an American he believes more 
or less implicitly that the contemporaries of Washing- 
ton and Jefferson arrived at political truths which, at 
least so far as he is concerned, may be received as 
final. The man who reasons by induction views the 
work of Washington and Jefferson otherwise. He 
views it as the product of the conditions of the 
eighteenth century, and as having no more necessary 
relation to the conduct of affairs in the twentieth, 
than Franklin's methods in electricity would have to 
the manipulation of a modern dynamo. The United 
States now occupies a position of extraordinary 
strength. Favored alike by geographical position, by 



INTRODUCriON xxxiii 

deposits of minerals, by climate, and by the character 
of her population, she has little to fear, either in peace 
or war, from rivals, provided the friction created by 
the movement of the masses with which she has to 
deal does not neutralize her energy. 

Masses accumulate in the United States because 
administration by masses is cheaper than administra- 
tion by detail. Masses take the form of corporations, 
and the men who rise to the control of these corpora- 
tions rise because they are fittest The process is 
natural selection. The life of the community lies 
in these masses. Derange them, and there would im- 
mediately follow an equivalent loss of energy. They 
are there because the conditions of our civilization are 
such as to make it cheaper that they should be there, 
and if our political institutions are ill-adapted to their .' 
propagation and development, then political institu- ,. 
tions must be readjusted, or the probability is that the 
whole fabric of society will be shattered by the dislo- 
cation of the economic system. America holds its 
tenure of prosperity only on condition that she can' 
undersell her rivals, and she cannot do so if her 
administrative machinery generates friction unduly. 

Political institutions and political principles are but 
a conventional dial on whose face the hands revolve 
which mark the movement of the mechanism within. 
Most governments and many codes have been adored 
as emanating from the deity. All were ephemeral, 
and all which survived their purpose became a jest 
or a curse to the children of the worshippers ; things 
to be cast aside like worn-out garments. 

Under any circumstances an organism so gigantic 
as the American Union must generate friction. In 



XXxiv INTRODUCTION 

American industry friction will infallibly exist be- 
tween capital and labor ; but that necessary friction 
may be indefinitely increased by conservatism. His- 
tory teems with examples of civilizations which have 
been destroyed through an unreasoning inertia like 
that of Brutus, or the French privileged classes, or 
Patrick Henry. A slight increase in the relative cost 
of production caused by an imperfect mechanical ad- 
justment is usually sufficient to give some rival an 
advantage, and when a country is undersold, misery 
sets in. People who cannot earn their daily bread 
are revolutionary, and disorders bred by violence 
achieve the series of disasters which began with the 
diversion of trade. Such was the fate of the great 
cities of Flanders, of Bruges, of Ghent, and of Ypres. 

The alternative presented is plain. Men may 
cherish ideals and risk substantial benefits to realize 
them. Such is the emotional instinct. Or they may 
regard their government dispassionately, as they 
would any other matter of business. 

Americans in former generations led a simple 
agricultural life. Possibly such a life was happier 
than ours. Very probably keen competition is not a 
blessing. We cannot alter our environment. Nature 
has cast the United States into the vortex of the 
fiercest struggle which the world has ever known. 
She has become the heart of the economic system of 
the age, and she must maintain her supremacy by 
wit and by force, or share the fate of the discarded. 
What that fate is the following pages tell. 

The liberal education tends to instil a reverence 
for fixed standards ; therefore an adherence to these 
methods must encourage rigidity and make innova- 



INTRODUCTION 

tions proportionately difficult, and this in the face of 
a huge, complex society, moving with unexampled 
velocity. An extension of scientific training to 
branches hitherto controlled by conservatism would 
doubtless alter moral standards, but probably only 
by anticipating by a few years an inevitable intel- 
lectual transformation. The advantage would be 
that we should facilitate adjustment and distance our 
rivals by reaching first a predestined goal. 

The following essay is an attempt to deal, by in- 
ductive methods, with the consolidation and dissolu- 
tion of those administrative masses which we call 
empires. The same method might be applied to any 
phase of civilization, artistic, literary, or military. 
My observation leads me to surmise that the intel- 
lectual stimulus of an environment acts very uni- 
formly, and that where a community is roused to 
activity in one direction, it will be active in all di- 
rections in which it has capacity to succeed, or in 
which opportunity for success is afforded. 

This book is purely tentative and only suggests an 
hypothesis to serve as a stepping-stone to something 
better. No man who works by inductive methods 
can hope either to be complete, or to reach a final 
result. He cannot do so, because he attempts to deal 
with infinite sequences of cause and effect, and his 
mind is finite. Like any other generalization, this 
will serve its purpose if its method be right and it 
prove suggestive to others. Its object is to be set 
aside by those who follow and improve. 

From the days of Roger Bacon to those of Darwin 
scientific methods and scientific theories have not 
commended themselves to the conservative. They 



XXXvi INTRODUCTION 

could hardly do so, since they undermine tradition. 
Among many examples which might be cited of re- 
sistance to innovation one must suffice. It is, per- 
haps, the most memorable. On June 22, 1633, the 
Holy Office enunciated the following decree in the 
trial of Galileo for heresy : — 

1. That the sim is the centre of the world and im- 
movable is a proposition absurd and false in phi- 
losophy, and formally heretical, as being expressly 
contrary to Holy Scripture. 

2. That the earth is not the centre of the world, 
nor immovable, but that it moves even with a diurnal 
motion, is in like manner a proposition absurd and 
false in philosophy, and, considered in theology, at 
least erroneous in faith. 

To escape torture Galileo recanted, but still he 
murmured, "e pur si muove." 



THE NEW EMPIRE 




A^thfinian Colonists »— .— 



in i^oionists >.— — ■-■ o lo so 
iql Longitude EastgjTfroin GrMnwtchajS* 



THE NEW EMPIRE 



CHAPTER I 

Two propositions seem indisputable: First, that 
self-preservation is the most imperious of instincts; 
Second, that in his efforts to prolong his life, man 
has followed the paths of least resistance. 

Without food or the means of defence, death is 
inevitable, and as few communities have succeeded 
in entirely feeding and arming themselves from their 
own resources, they have supplied their deficiencies 
from abroad. No man will knowingly use interior 
weapons in war, but the apprehension of want is al- 
most as drastic as the fear of defeat ; even savages 
try to improve their tools. For example, the Stone- 
Age inhabitants of central Europe imported jade 
axes from the confines of the desert of Gobi because 
jade takes a better edge than flint. Yet the cost of 
conveying jade across the Pamirs from Khotan to 
Germany would now be excessive, and then must 
have represented a prodigious sacrifice. 

From the beginning, therefore, men have obtained 
wares from strangers. They have done so both by 
force and by purchase; but as battle is uncertain 
they have inclined toward trade, and to trade, buyer 
and seller must meet. Usually they have met at the 
junction of the paths leading to the sources of sup- 



2 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

ply. Here houses have multiplied, a wall to protect 
the houses has been built, and within the wall the 
neighboring population has gathered on certain days, 
or at certain seasons, and thus has germinated the 
market or fair. Fairs have always been frequented 
in proportion to their consequence, the more noted 
having been thronged by foreigners. Nevertheless, 
no fair can thrive unless accessible, and none can be 
accessible with approaches closed either by defects 
or robbers ; hence, some system of road-building and 
police must precede centralized trade. Nor can busi- 
ness be transacted without a tribunal to decide dis- 
putes. Accordingly, an administrative mechanism 
must have always existed at market towns, and the 
growth of this mechanism at the more important has 
created capital cities. Thus, it may be inferred that 
the structure we call civil society is an outgrowth of 
trade. Finally, as one army and one administrative 
corps are cheaper than several, the tendency has 
been toward amalgamation; the lesser market sink- 
ing into insignificance, and the petty state into a prov- 
ince. Many independent kingdoms once flourished 
together in Mesopotamia, but, when consecutive his- 
tory begins, all had been welded into a single organ- 
ism with Babylon for a heart. 

As communications improve and markets broaden, 
roads stretch out across continents and join oceans ; 
then the empires traversed by such highways cohere 
in economic systems, since they have a common inter- 
est to resist the diversion of their traffic. Sooner 
or later, however, parallel routes between the same 
termini are opened, competition between the systems 
acquires intensity, and economic competition in its 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 3 

intensest form is war. Hence, from the beginning 
of history, rival systems have fought with and de- 
stroyed each other. If one system conquer, con- 
solidation may follow, and an equilibrium may be 
obtained which may endure indefinitely, as did the 
Roman Empire; but if neither can win a decisive 
advantage, the war may end by forcing commerce 
into other channels, and both combatants may perish. 
Such was substantially the fate of the Greek states. 

Among the inventions which have stimulated 
movement and consequently centralization, none has 
equalled the smelting of the metals. Smiths have 
made from metal superior weapons and tools, and 
races using these implements have, in the end, en- 
slaved or exterminated neighbors adhering to wood 
and stone, wherefore a supply of metal early became 
essential to existence in the more active quarters of 
the globe. To procure ore men have wandered far 
and wide, and thus while the introduction of metal 
induced a more rapid concentration at the heart of 
the civilized mass, it caused a proportionate expan- 
sion at the circumference. Yet no empire and no 
system can expand equally in all directions, for the 
resistance to expansion is variable, consequently 
growth is irregular ; and as the shape of the organism 
changes, the arteries connecting its extremities must 
alter their course to correspond. But an alteration 
of the course of the circulation presupposes a dis- 
placement of the heart, and for this reason society 
tends toward instability of equilibrium. 

Evidently, approached from this standpoint, min- 
eralogy and geography elucidate history, for the one 
helps to explain the forces which have moved the 



V 



y 



4 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

seat of empire, the other the obstacles which have 
fixed its course by determining the path of least re- 
sistance. Furthermore, civilization may be examined 
scientifically. The cause may be deduced from the 
effect, until the origin of the phenomena of the twen- 
tieth century may be traced back to the murky past 
which preceded the pyramid of Cheops, and human 
development may be presented as a mechanical 
whole. For present purposes it suffices to begin with 
the smelting of the metals. 

We know not when Chaldea and Egypt may have 
emerged from the Stone Age, but nothing indicates 
that prior to 4000 B.C. either community had achieved 
opulence. On the contrary, the evidence indicates 
that both empires rose to fortune through a success- 
ful speculation made by the Egyptians in Arabian 
copper, at the beginning of the fourth dynasty. The 
richest mines then known lay in the valley of Mag- 
hara in the peninsula of Sinai, and though the 
Egyptian kings appear to have previously invaded 
the valley, a permanent occupation seems only to 
have been achieved by Sneferu, about 4000 B.C. 

At the mouth of one of these mines Sneferu com- 
memorated his victory by causing his portrait to be 
cut in the rock, slaying a captive, and, near by, an 
inscription to be carved relating his triumph. That 
victory, by making Egypt the chief producer of 
metals, made her the western terminus of commerce, 
and the market whose tastes had to be consulted by 
all who needed the minerals she had to sell. Between 
Asia, east of the Tigris, and Egypt, lay Mesopotamia ; 
all trade routes converged there, accordingly Meso- 
potamia became the central market where the most 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 5 

important exchanges were effected, and thus was 
founded the Babylonian economic system. This 
mighty system, which, in its prime, comprised all the 
nations bordering the highways connecting the Oxus 
and the Indus with the Guadalquivir, flourished for 
nearly three thousand years. Culminating about the 
siege of Troy, for some centuries it struggled with 
the Greek system afterward established along the 
cheaper waterways of the north, and finally sank into 
ruin under the onset of Alexander the Great. 

The evidence that Egypt achieved affluence through 
her mines, especially her Arabian copper mines, is 
pretty convincing. The Egyptians were good metal- 
lurgists and certainly worked gold, iron, copper, and 
bronze before the fourth dynasty. The gold and iron 
came originally from Nubia. According to Diodorus 
the Nubian gold mines, under Rameses II. or in the 
fourteenth century B.C., yielded annually bullion to 
the value of $65o,(XK),ooo.^ Possibly, also, the Nubi- 
ans discovered the smelting of iron, and the Egyptians 
may in early times have drawn their supply of steel, 
especially as a finished product, from the south. 
Afterward they mined iron in the valley of Maghara, 
near their copper. Yet conceding that iron was used 
in Egypt under Cheops, it cost high, and held a 
secondary place in the arts. Copper served as the 
useful metal.* 

Except the systematic working of the Maghara 
mines, nothing is known to have occurred in Egypt 
about the beginning of the fourth dynasty which 

^ Die GesehUhte des Eisens^ Beck, I., 71. 

* See Die Geschichie des Eisens, Ludwig Beck, I., 77, 96. Also 
ffistoire de PArt^ Perrot & Chipiez, I., 650, 831. 



6 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

could have caused a social revolution. The relations 
of the country with Nubia underwent no especial 
change before the campaigns of Una, five hundred 
years later ; the methods of industry, transportation, 
and agriculture remained unaltered, and yet, im- 
mediately after Sneferu's conquest, Egypt entered 
her golden age. This fact is established by her 
architecture. 

Egyptian emotion found its strongest expression 
in the tomb. As tomb builders the Egyptians 
have had no equal. The pyramid stands alone as 
an everlasting abode for the dead. Also the era of 
colossal art opens with Sneferu. 

Sneferu reigned for twenty-nine years, between 
3998 B.C. and 3969. As he first regularly mined the 
Sinai copper, so he first built a pyramid. He even 
built two, one of which survives. Cheops succeeded 
Sneferu, and Cheops's tomb is still a wonder of the 
world. Nor, in the expenditure lavished on details of 
workmanship, have the builders of the pyramids of 
Gizeh ever been surpassed. The fourth dynasty 
lasted for 284 years, during which period construction 
continued on a scale thus described by Flinders 
Petrie : " The simplicity, the vastness, the perfection, 
and the beauty of the earliest works place them on a 
different level to all works of art and man's devices 
in later ages. They are unique in their splendid 
power, which no self-conscious civilization has ever 
rivalled, or can hope to rival ; and in their enduring 
greatness they may last till all feebler works of man 
have perished." ^ 

Egypt must have amassed wealth rapidly to have 

^ History ofEgypt^ I., 67. 



L THE NEW EMPIRE J 

borne this burden through near three centuries with- 
out exhaustion, and the magnitude of her foreign 
trade is proved by the rise of Mesopotamia where 
her commercial exchanges centred. The glory of 
North Mesopotamia opened with the renowned Sar- 
gon, who reigned about 3850 B.C., whose empire is 
supposed to have extended to Cyprus, if not to Mag- 
hara itself, and who stands as the first of that long 
line of potentates which ended with the Darius who 
perished in his flight from Alexander. 

Centuries before Sargon, Ur of the Chaldeans held 
the first place in the valley of the Euphrates. Ur 
stood at the junction of the coast road from India 
with the camel track leading to Sinai, accordingly the 
reasonable inference would seem to be that, originally, 
the chief traffic passed straight from the mouth of 
the Indus to the mines on the Red Sea, and that the 
highways converging at Babylon acquired conse- 
quence later. Ample explanation of such a growth 
is to be found in the geography of central Asia. 

The combined continents of Asia and Europe have 
proved impossible to develop as a unit, not only 
because their different shapes demand irreconcilable 
systems of transportation, but because of the deserts 
and mountains in their midst. Still commerce be- 
tween the East and West has always been a neces- 
sity, because the two regions supplement each other. 
While India, China, and Turkestan have been re- 
nowned for agriculture, manufactures, and the pro- 
duction of luxuries and gems, they have failed to 
compete in the metals; whereas Europe, though 
dependent on Asia for spices and the like, has sur- 
passed her in mining. 



8 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

But before there could be commercial exchanges 
between East and West, avenues of communication 
had to be opened, and the cheapest of these long pre- 
sented insuperable difficulties. For ages the voyage 
from China to India, and from India to Egypt, defied 
nautical skill. 

Although primitive savages use boats, the sail is a 
later invention, and the art of working to windward 
modem. Dangerous coasts affright the navigators of 
frail ships and the open sea appalls them, yet the voy- 
age to Aden, or even the Euphrates, lay over a waste 
of waters, or along a barbarous and desolate shore. 

Even as late as 325 B.C., when Nearchus returned 
from India with Aleicander's army, the Greek gen- 
eral nearly perished. From Pattala, at the mouth of 
the Indus, it took Nearchus nearly three months to 
reach the Persian Gulf. There he met Alexander, 
but so changed by hardship that the emperor did 
not know him. Although, of course, provided with 
the best craft, pilots, and stores which were to be 
obtained, Nearchus lost several ships by wreck, had 
to abandon others, narrowly escaped death from hun- 
ger and thirst, and was assailed by the natives when 
he landed. If Nearchus fared so ill upon the short 
voyage from the Indus to the Tigris, the lot of the 
lonely merchantman bound for Egypt may be 
imagined. Direct communication between India and 
Egypt only opened after the Christian era. Therefore 
merchandise crossed central Asia by caravan, and in an- 
cient times by one of three routes, for the northern plain 
now traversed by the Siberian railway led to no market 
before civilization spread to the Baltic. Until the Mid- 
dle Ages the Mediterranean afforded the only vent. 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 9 

The heart of Asia from Lake Baikal to India is 
occupied by the desert of Gobi and the ranges of the 
Altai, the Pamirs, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalaya, 
forming together a tremendous barrier. When, after 
crossing the Gobi, the traveller reached Kashgar or 
Yarkand at the base of the mountains, he might turn 
to the south toward the Indus, keep on due east 
toward the Oxus, or journey north into the valley of 
the Syr-Daria. If he chose the southern road, he 
followed the paths described by Wood and Young- 
husband along the tributaries of the Oxus until he 
found a pass in the Hindu Kush, leading to India.^ 
Once on the banks of the Indus he descended the 
river to the delta, and, at Pattala, took the southern 
highway to Babylon, along which Alexander marched. 
The objections to this route were manifold. It was 
long, toilsome, and dangerous. 

Secondly, merchants utilized the valley of the Syr- 
Daria. After the fall of Troy caravans passed along 
the northern coast of the Caspian, to the Sea of 
Azov, by way of the Volga and the Don ; and since 
the Middle Ages they have sought Moscow, by Tash- 
kend, Turkestan, and Orenburg. Before the opening 
of the Hellespont to commerce, these northern outlets 
were closed, and traffic had to pass by Maracanda, 
the modem Samarkand. But as gaining the Syr-Daria 
from Kashgar involved making the Terek pass 12,700 
feet high, and closed in summer by melting snow, 
a more northern track through Siberia, and south of 
Lake Balkash, seems to have been preferred. It is 
noteworthy that Maracanda never attained the con- 

1 See the route of Benedict Goes given on Yule's map in Cathay 
andOu Way Thithery VoL 2, Hakluyt Soc. Publications. 



10 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

sequence of Bactra, the inference being that, before 
the Middle Ages, the highway on which the town stood 
remained a subsidiary avenue. In 12 18, at the open- 
ing of his campaign against Trans-Oxania, Jenghiz 
Khan marched through this region on Otrar. Doubt- 
less he followed what was then the beaten track. Will- 
iam of Rubruck was carried over the same road in 
1253,^ and in the time of Tamerlane the northern route 
seems to have superseded all others. Friar William 
also started from the Sea of Azov, an outlet much used 
by the Greeks and also by the Genoese. Neverthe- 
less, in antiquity, speaking broadly, the bulk of traffic 
probably took the path afterward selected by Marco 
Polo, who kept as straight as might be across the 
Pamirs into the valley of the Oxus, and thence to 
Bactra, which we know as the wretched hamlet of 
Balkh.2 From an economic standpoint Bactra pre- 
sents phenomena of surpassing interest. The city was 
created by the junction of the main thoroughfare 
to China with that which led to northern India by 
Bamian, Kabul, and the Khyber. While the sea pre- 
sented the terrors encountered by Nearchus, the mer- 
chants of Kashmir and the Punjab had the alternative 
of descending the Indus and then journeying by land 
to Babylon, or of crossing the mountains and seeking 
Bactra. Apparently they preferred the latter, for 
the ruins of Bamian still fill the pass, while the re- 
mains of Bactra cover a circuit of twenty miles, after 
six hundred years of abandonment. 

1 See map prepared by Hon. W. W. Rockhill in his edition of 7^ 
Journey of WiUiam of Rubruck^ Publications of Hakluyt Soc, Second 
Ser., No. IV. 

^ For Polo's route, see Yule's edition of Marco Polo. 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE II 

When Nineveh and Babylon were born, Bactra, 
the mother of cities, was akeady hoary. The legend 
has it that when Ninus, the founder of Babylon, was 
besieging Bactra, the ineffable Semiramis joined his 
camp, and by her intelligence, carried the walls. 
Ninus, captivated by her wit, her courage, and her 
beauty, drove her husband to suicide and married 
her. At all events Bactra long remained the me- 
tropolis for the trade of China, the Punjab, Kashmir, 
and Turkestan ; and from Bactra many roads diverged 
to the sea. Of these roads, according to the legend, 
Semiramis built the first across the Zagros Mountains 
to Babylon, a road still used by the traveller from 
Bagdad to Teheran. A second avenue unites Balkh 
with Teheran, Mosul, and Alexandretta, and for- 
merly connected the famous cities of Bactra, Ragae, 
Gaugamela, Nisabis, Haran, and Aradus. From any 
Syrian port such as Aradus, Tyre, or Sidon, the mari- 
ner steered due west to Cyprus, Crete, Carthage, and 
Cadiz. 

Thus, before the opening of the Dardanelles, the 
lands beyond the Oxus and the Indus were connected 
with the Mediterranean by three main thorough- 
fares : — 

First, that which leaving Pattala skirted the Ara- 
bian Sea and the Persian Gulf, reaching the Nile by 
Ur. 

Second, that built by Semiramis across the Zagros 
Mountains between Bactra, Babylon, and the coast. 

Third, that which joined Bactra, Nineveh, Haran, 
and Aradus. 

Upon each of these thoroughfares a great market 
was begotten, and if the chronological order in which 



12 THE NEW EMPIRE chap, 

these markets grew be examined, it will be found to 
indicate a movement northward of the seat of empire 
continued through thousands of years, and gaining 
constantly in velocity. 

The rise of Ur, the most southern of the three 
capitals, is lost in the past, but Ur must have been 
extremely ancient, since she had culminated when 
Sargon reigned in 3850 B.C. 

In Sargon's time the centre of exchanges seems to 
have been in transit, for Sargon's chief city was, 
probably, Nippur, about two-thirds of the way from Ur 
to Babylon; notwithstanding which, Babylon only 
achieved supremacy fifteen hundred years later, under 
Hammurabi, toward 2250 b.c. Compared with such 
sluggishness the advance from Babylon to Nineveh 
was rapid, for Salmanassar established the prepon- 
derance of Assyria in Mesopotamia about 1300 B.c. 
Salmanassar chose for the site of his capital the angle 
made by the confluence of the Tigris and the Great 
Zab, where are now the mounds of Nimrud. His 
successors moved to Nineveh, eighteen miles up the 
Tigris, but the new city was only an extension of 
Calach. Meanwhile, movement had been acceler- 
ated, for Nineveh lived fast, even judged by modem 
standards. Bom in 1300, she perished in 607 b.c, 
just as Athens and Syracuse blossomed. 

An impulsion so persistent must have been the 
effect of an equally persistent cause. Such a cause 
might have been the expansion of the economic mass 
occasioned by the opening to commerce of the basins 
of the Mediterranean and Euxine. It can be demon- 
strated in support of this view that these regions 
were developed during this interval. 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 3 

Certainly the assumption is justified that prior to 
4CXX) B.C. Europe was barbarous and poor, and the 
purchasing power, even of Egypt, limited. The Nile, 
therefore, formed the terminus of the eastern trade, 
and offered the single market of consequence west of 
the Euphrates. Under such conditions only small 
articles of pure necessity, such as jade axe-heads, 
could have been transported from China to Europe 
over the long and costly route by Bactra. Bulky 
merchandise would have followed the shortest road 
to Egypt. That road lay through Ur and Arabia 
straight to Sinai, where copper might be obtained 
for goods. 

The conquest of Maghara worked a social revolu- 
tion in the west by enlarging its purchasing power, 
and creating capitalistic accumulations in Chaldea 
which stimulated expansion. This appears from the 
annexation of C}rprus by Sargon, and the transfer- 
ence of mining activity from the Red Sea to the 
Mediterranean. The Phoenicians led in enterprise, 
and the discovery and development of Cyprian cop- 
per was the first of their many industrial triumphs. 
Another thousand years elapsed before Babylon 
achieved supremacy, for Babylon's rise was the effect 
of the extension of exchanges westward until they, 
probably, reached the Atlantic. That such an exten- 
sion occurred is proved by the recent excavations in 
Crete, which show that in 2400 B.C., or before Ham- 
murabi, Crete had become a civilized and opulent 
kingdom, and a foremost maritime power. Crete 
could only have prospered because she lay in the 
track of a lucrative commerce flowing west, and that 
commerce must have been the Bactra trade which 



14 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

reached Babylon over the highway of Semiramis as 
soon as Babylon offered a market for costly wares. 
These wares passed from Babylon to a Phoenician 
port, such as Tyre or Sidon, and thence were shipped 
wherever they could be exchanged for metal or slaves. 
Who the Phoenicians were, and whence they came, 
is immaterial. Archaeologists incline to the opinion 
that they migrated from India to the head of the 
Persian Gulf and thence passed on into Syria, proba- 
bly always in the wake of the commerce which they 
loved so well. Nor did their migrations stop at 
Syria ; a few hundred years later they had wandered 
to Spain by way of Utica, and founded Cadiz. The 
Phoenicians were the greatest explorers and metallur- 
gists of antiquity. They penetrated every inlet and 
prospected in every land. They developed the re- 
sources of southern Europe and northern Africa west 
of Egypt, and as the sphere of Phoenician enterprise 
expanded, the lines of commimication changed to 
correspond. Therefore the route across Arabia to 
Sinai yielded to those leading to Aradus, Tyre, and 
Sidon. A glance at the map will explain the situa- 
tion. Nobody knows where the ancients obtained the 
tin with which they made bronze in the early times, 
for tin is not supposed to have been found in any 
region accessible to them. Primitive workings are, 
indeed, said to exist near Bamian, but the cost of 
transporting ore from Bamian to Egypt by caravan 
must have been prohibitive. A plausible theory is 
that before the Phoenicians reached Cornwall by sea, 
they dealt with the natives for tin at the mouths of 
such rivers as the Rhone, where it had come from 
England by passing from hand to hand; that they 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 5 

slowly traced the supply to its source, and so dis- 
covered the mines.^ 

But wherever they found their ore, the Phoenicians 
certainly waxed rich by their dealings in metals, and, 
as capital increased, ships multiplied, energy aug- 
mented, and exploration went on faster. The next 
step was the development of the countries bordering 
the Euxine, and probably expansion in this direction 
received its first stimulus from the discovery of gold 
in Lydia. 

When the Lydian gold first permeated the inter- 
national market can never be ascertained, but, judg- 
ing by the legends, it must have been during the 
Babylonian supremacy. According to the myth, cer- 
tain peasants having found Silenus drunk in a garden 
belonging to Midas, bound him with garlands of 
flowers and brought him to the king. Midas enter- 
tained him for some days, and then restored him to 
Dionysus, who in his gratitude granted Midas a wish. 
Midas wished to turn all he touched into gold. But 
in eating he turned his food into gold, so that, on the 
brink of starvation, Midas prayed to be saved from 
himself. The god ordered him to bathe at the source 
of the Pactolus, whose sands forthwith became gold. 
From this sand Croesus afterward drew his wealth. 
Lydian gold opened a new market and drew trade 
north. Doubtless this trade first passed by Nineveh 
to Tarsus, and then through the Cilician Gates to 
Sardis by way of Philadelphia, a route which Taver- 
nier mentioned as much used in his time ; or else it 
may have gone up the valley of the Tigris, and over 
what later became the Royal Persian Road. In 

^ See Die Geschickte des Eisens, Beck, I., 1S4 ef seq. 



1 6 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

either case the journey through Nineveh necessitated 
a long detour, the direct line to Sardis and Smyrna 
from Teheran passing to the north of Lake Van, 
through the modem Tabriz and Erzeroum. But all 
Armenia is mountainous and difficult, and it was the 
difficulty of Armenia which ruined the Assyrian em- 
pire. The Caucasus and Urals are rich in minerals, 
and once abounded in gold. Georgia has always 
been famous for its slaves. And as travel drew 
northward toward the shortest lines of communica- 
tion, these regions began to be explored not only 
overland, but through such ports as Trebizond and 
Sinope. How rich this region must have been for 
the early adventurers is proved by every discovery of 
modem times. Not to speak of the gold ornaments 
of Panticapaeum, found by the Russians, and which 
belong to a later age, Schliemann's treasure would set 
doubt at rest A generation ago, in searching for 
Troy, Schliemann fell upon the lowest of six super- 
imposed cities, the last of which was Ilium. The 
town Schliemann unearthed belonged to the Stone 
Age, so far as useful metals were concerned, and 
must have been extremely ancient, yet in this small 
and barbarous community he found the hoard which 
made him famous. Beside the metals, the slaves 
of Georgia and southern Russia have always been of 
value. When Chardin visited Persia in 1664, he 
sailed in a slaver. 

If these geographical conditions be borne in mind 
the career of Nineveh is comprehensible. Nineveh 
prospered during the relatively short period when 
she served as the centre of the trade passing east and 
west, between Bactra, the northern ports of Syria, 



I. THE NEW EMHRE 1 7 

Lydia, and the basin of the Black Sea. When that 
commerce sought cheaper routes, she fell ; but while 
she lived, she lived only on the condition that she 
could hold and police the avenues running west and 
north. Accordingly her story is one of perpetual 
war. Her emperor lived in the field. The campaigns 
of Tiglat-Pileser I. about 1 100 b.c, one of the greatest 
of her captains, and who achieved a suzerainty over 
Babylon, are typical of what happened during every 
reign. Tiglat-Pileser I. passed his life in warfare 
along the highways diverging from Nineveh toward 
Syria and Armenia. The fiercest fighting occurred 
in Armenia, in the same country where Mithradates, 
centuries afterward, resisted Rome. 

The seasons resembled each other, but, according 
to Winckler, he achieved one of his most brilliant 
successes in the second year of his reign, when he 
conquered the Kummuchs, a nomadic and predatory 
tribe which inhabited the hills between Haran and 
Amida, and robbed on the road to Antioch. 

In the fifth year he marched through north Meso- 
potamia to Aradus, and celebrated his triumph by 
sailing upon the open sea.^ Nevertheless his most 
important victory was probably achieved in Armenia, 
— a victory commemorated by a column which still 
stands. The road from Trebizond to Nineveh skirts 
the base of the huge extinct volcano called Nimrud, 
which forms the core of the mountainous region about 
Lake Van, and Betlis to the south of Nimrud com- 
mands the pass leading to the plateau above. For 
ages the princes of Betlis maintained their indepen- 
dence; the last fell in 1849. Tavernier, who left 

1 Geschichte Babyloniem und Assyriens^ Hugo Winckler, 175. 

c 



1 8 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Paris for Persia in November, 1663, thus described 
their fortress : — 

" Betlis is the principal town of a bey or prince of 
the country, the most powerful apd the most con- 
siderable of all; because he recognizes neither the 
Sultan of Turkey nor the King of Persia, while the 
others all owe allegiance to one or the other. Both 
powers are interested in standing well with him, 
because on whichever side he might range himself, 
it would be easy for him to close the road to those 
who wish to take this route from Aleppo to Tabriz, 
or from Tabriz to Aleppo. For there are no moun- 
tain passes to be seen in the world easier to guard, 
and ten men will defend them against a thousand. 
In approaching Betlis when one comes from Aleppo, 
one marches an entire day between high and steep 
mountains which continue for two leagues beyond. 
And one has always on one side the torrent and on 
the other the mountains, the path being cut in the 
rock in many places, so that the camels and the 
mules have to walk cautiously to prevent falling into 
the water." 

The castle stood perched on a sugar-loaf hill, so 
steep that it could only be reached by a zigzag, and 
was defended by three moats. 

" The prince who commands in this place, beside 
being redoubtable because of this pass which cannot 
be forced, can put in the field twenty or twenty-five 
thousand horse, and a quantity of excellent infantry 
composed of the shepherds of the country, who are 
always ready at the first command." ^ 

"^Les Six Voyages de Jean BapHste Tavemiery Edition of 1712. 
Livre 3, p. 375, 6. 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 9 

To place Nineveh's commercial interests on any- 
thing approaching a solid basis, she should have con- 
quered and held Armenia, but more especially the 
country round Lake Van, where the roads leading 
west from Tabriz and north from Nineveh crossed. 
The Ass)n:ians failed ; and they paid the penalty of 
failure. 

Among the many commanders who essayed the 
task, perhaps Tiglat-Pileser fared best, for he not 
only forced the pass of Betlis, but he met the enemy 
on the plain of Melazkert above, and routed them at 
the point where the roads to Trebizond and Kars fork. 
There he erected the pillar which commemorates his 
victory. 

Had the Assyrian race possessed the energy to con- 
tinue the movement northward, to conquer Armenia, 
to extend their power along the coast to the Darda- 
nelles, and to overrun Lydia, as the Persians did 
subsequently, possibly the life of the Babylonian 
system might have been prolonged for centuries, 
and the rise of Greece proportionately postponed. 
The fate of Asia was not so much decided at Salamis 
as centuries before at Van. Assyria produced no 
greater warrior than Tiglat-Pileser III., and under 
him she made the supreme effort In 735 b.c. he 
advanced on Van, took the town, and laid siege to 
the citadel. He suffered a repulse, and retreated. 
Then Assyria began to decline, and during the season 
of her decay the Greeks gained strength to resist the 
Persian onset when the storm broke three hundred 
years later.^ 

^ For an account of the Van conntiy, see Armenia^ by H. F. 6. 
Lynch, 2,s^efse^, 



20 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

As long as the Dardanelles remained closed, and 
the Greeks were excluded from the Euxine, they lay 
too far to the north to participate in the Bactra trade, 
or to seriously compete with the Phoenicians. The 
question of unchallenged Asiatic supremacy turned 
upon command of the straits, and this both sides seem 
to have understood. Even hampered as they were 
by their inability to hold the roads to the northwest, 
the Assyrians appear to have done their best to pro- 
tect their interests. Diodorus has stated that Troy 
received help from Nineveh during the siege; and 
apart from Diodorus, the legend of the Argonauts 
proves the danger which attended an attempt to 
enter the Propontis, and leads to the inference that 
Troy must have been an outwork of the Assyrian- 
Phoenician combination. On their side the Greeks 
showed a patience in attack perhaps unequalled in 
their history. Though wonderfully gifted in many 
directions, the Greeks usually lacked cohesion. Sel- 
dom, even when invaded, could they unite against an 
enemy. Yet Agamemnon formed a coalition for an 
aggressive campaign, and won a decisive victory. 
Nor were they less successful in improving their ad- 
vantage than in gaining it All the world has heard 
of the deeds of the heroes before the walls of Troy; 
but very few have reflected on the genius which 
raised the children of these heroes from insignificance 
to supremacy in the Orient. 

The Greeks excelled not only as soldiers, as artists, 
as orators, and as poets, but as colonizers and finan- 
ciers. Long study alone breeds an appreciation of 
their marvellous aptitudes. Advancing steadily for 
centuries, they wrought out a system for controlling 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 21 

the roads converging on Bactra, at once comprehen- 
sive and economical. Their scanty numbers precluded 
extended conquests, their poverty the maintenance of 
great armies; they therefore limited themselves to 
seizing and holding the points which commanded 
trade. But the Greek system deserves to be followed 
from the beginning. 

The Greeks, though intelligent and brave, were 
scattered and poor. Their sterile hills yielded but a 
precarious subsistence, their mines were undeveloped, 
and they eked out a slender livelihood by slaving and 
piracy. These conditions are reflected in their myths, 
which teem with their revolt against oppression and 
their yearning for that wealth which poured past their 
threshold. The exquisite tale of Theseus, who volun- 
teered to take his place among the victims sent to 
Crete, that he might fight and slay the Minotaur 
and deliver his country from the yoke of Minos ; of 
his victory, of his return with the black sail which 
was to signify his death, and of his father's agony 
and suicide at the sight, is the tradition of the upris- 
ing against Cretan slaving. On the other hand, we 
have the Argo penetrating the Euxine, and Jason 
bringing back the golden fleece from Colchis, where 
the Greeks afterward planted Phasis, the door to the 
Caspian ; and last and greatest of all, Hercules, who 
sought, in the garden of the Hesperides, those golden 
apples which were to be plucked in Spain. 

Stretching east from Sunium, the islands lie so 
close together that the longest interval of open 
water between Attica and Ionia is the twenty-five 
miles separating Myconos from Icaria. At the end 
of this chain of islands lies Miletus, and it was along 



22 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

this causeway that Neleus, the son of Codrus, must 
have passed when he founded the mother of the 
Greek colonies in Asia. Perhaps, indeed, Neleus 
may have come rather as the leader of a reenforce- 
ment than as the actual founder of Miletus. Codrus 
lived in 1050 B.C., which is relatively late, and the 
Greek tradition seldom went back to the original 
settlement, but rather chronicled the events which 
dwelt in the popular imagination as the beginning of 
the Golden Age. Nevertheless, the precise date is 
immaterial ; the essential fact is that no sooner had 
the Greeks planted themselves firmly on the coast 
than they spread along the shore, colonizing the more 
important points, until at Lampsacus, at Chalcedon, 
and at Byzantium they obtained control of the straits. 
Probably they had previously explored the Euxine, 
for they appear very early to have seized upon all the 
avenues converging on the sea, by which trade could 
find vent. They built Tyras, near where Odessa now 
stands, and Olbia at the entrance to the chain of 
watercourses, by following which, traffic through- 
out the Middle Ages reached Scandinavia by the 
Dnieper, the Lovat, and Lake Ladoga. Farther east, 
in the Crimea, they settled at Panticapaeum, the mod- 
em Kertch, where recent excavations have yielded 
the gold ornaments which are the gem of the Her- 
mitage in St. Petersburg. From Panticapaeum mer- 
chants travelled to the Caspian by ascending the 
Don, crossing the neck between the rivers, and 
descending the Volga. Poti is the terminus of the 
Caucasian railway, whence the line leads direct to 
Tiflis and Baku; but Poti occupies the site of the 
ancient Phasis, as Trebizond, the port of Teheran, 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 23 

does of Trapezus. Lastly came Sinope, where the 
roads met which led southeast to Nineveh, or Mosul, 
and southwest to Sardis, the capital of the kingdom 
of Croesus. Yet this was but the half of what the 
Greeks conceived and executed. To have established 
connections with the East alone would not have suf- 
ficed; a market had to be secured in the West 
Accordingly while Athens, Megara, and Miletus 
girdled the Black Sea, Corinth and Achaia stretched 
out to Sicily and Italy, and contemporaneously cre- 
ated Syracuse, Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum — the 
immortal Magna Graecia. 

Before the Greeks navigated the Black Sea, mer- 
chandise must have reached Sardis by caravan, prob- 
ably over the road which crossed the Maeander near 
Hierapolis, a route described by Xenophon, and after- 
ward by Tavemier. Miletus lay below, at the mouth 
of the river, and flourished not only on the trade 
which flowed directly to it, but also as one of the 
ports of Sardis. The Greeks inhabiting Miletus 
grew rich fast, and as they prospered pushed for- 
ward by sea toward the sources of supply, always 
seeking cheaper avenues of communication. In their 
explorations they could not have met with much 
opposition, for the Euxine had an infamous reputa- 
tion, and the inhabitants of Asia Minor were timid 
sailors. Of course no caravan from Teheran can now 
compete with steamers on the Black Sea, but they 
did better when ships were frailer, and, even in the 
seventeenth century, Persians and Frenchmen pre- 
ferred the sixty days of horseback to facing the 
perils of the voyage to Trebizond, which is still the 
port of Teheran. 



24 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

The best early account of the journey east by 
sea is given by Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, an 
ambassador sent by Henry HI. of Castile to Tamer- 
lane at Samarkand. Samarkand lies in nearly 
the same longitude as Bactra, only farther north, 
on the other side of the Oxus, so that the journey 
thither was substantially the same as that to 
Balkh. 

On Tuesday, the 22d of May, 1403, the embassy 
embarked at Cadiz, but they did not finally leave 
Spain until the 29th, when they sailed from Malaga. 
Although Clavijo travelled in state, he made use of 
ordinary merchantmen, so that he underwent the 
delays incident to commerce, and his voyage to Trebi- 
zond may be taken as typical. From Trebizond he 
rode so hard, by the command of Tamerlane, that 
several of his suite died of fatigue. No caravan 
could have done the like. Nevertheless he only 
reached Samarkand a year from the 30th of the fol- 
lowing August. Clavijo found both the Mediterra- 
nean and the Black seas dangerous, the Black hardly 
more so than the Mediterranean, considering that he 
traversed the Mediterranean in summer, and only 
reached the Euxine in the middle of November. He 
consumed five months in gaining Constantinople, and 
more than once gave himself up for lost. For ex- 
ample, on July 29th, his ship drifted so near a rock 
that "the captain, and some merchants and sailors, 
stripped off their clothes ; and, when they stood off 
the shore, they understood that God had shown great 
mercy." At Constantinople the ambassador waited 
until November 13th for "a vessel to take them to 
Trebizond ; and, as the winter was approaching and 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 2$ 

the sea very dangerous . . . they took a galliot to 
prevent further delay." 

On the second day out, in the middle of the night, 
"the wind rose and the sea got up." They were 
lying within sight of a Genoese carrack and tried to 
reach her, but it blew so hard that they could not. 
Then they let go two anchors, but " the gale increased 
in a frightful way, and every person commended him- 
self to God our Lord, for they thought they would 
never escape." Meanwhile the carrack " was like to 
run foul of the galliot ; but it pleased our Lord God 
to succour her, and she passed without touching ; and 
they let go the anchors of the said carrack, but they 
would not hold, and she drifted on shore. Before 
day, she had gone to pieces, so that nothing was left 
of her." The galliot lived through the night, and 
with dawn the wind changed, " and became fair for 
the land of Turkey." "There were few to assist 
in working the s^jail, as the greater part of the crew 
were more dead than alive, so that if death had 
really come, they would not have cared much." 
Finally they reached shore, but the galliot went 
aground and " the sea swept into her, and at intervals 
the swell caused by the tempest broke over her ; and 
in the lulls the men carried the things to the land, 
and thus all the king's property was saved. In a 
very short time, however, the galliot was broken up, 
and her cargo was piled up in a heap." 

So Clavijo returned to Pera, where they remained 
all winter, reaching Trebizond the nth of April, 
nearly eleven months after leaving Spain.^ Even 

"^Narration of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to ih€ 
Court of Timour^ 53, Publications of the Hakluyt Society. 



26 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

within this century, Curzon has estimated that half 
the Turkish ships navigating the Black Sea were 
lost annually. 

Chardin, who visited Persia in 1664, did not like 
Black Sea ships. " I pointed out to him that we had 
neither provisions nor supplies, that the vessel was 
old, that it was filled daily with slaves of both sexes 
and all ages, so that one could no longer move on 
her. That since morning there had arrived a large 
number of Abcas and Migrahans who swarmed with 
vermin, and brought an infection which would en- 
gender the pest, that the vessel would only sail for 
Kaffa in two months, that this would be the season 
of tempests, and the time when the Black Sea, that 
sea so stormy and dangerous, is the most disturbed 
by hurricanes."^ 

Tavemier shared these views : " Embarking from 
Constantinople, one can arrive there [Trebizond] 
with a favorable wind in four or five days. In this 
way one can make in ten or twelve days, at slight 
expense, the journey from Constantinople to Erze- 
roum. Some have tried this route, but they have not 
found it satisfactory, and have not wished to return. 
It is a very dangerous voyage, and rarely made, be- 
cause this sea is full of fogs, and subject to tempests." 

Each race followed its instincts, the more hardy 
and adventurous gaining the advantage. Chardin 
and Tavemier represented the French; and the 
French, on the whole, fell steadily behind in the 
Levant, where during the crusades they stood fore- 
most. The Venetians, the Genoese, and afterward 

^ Voyages de M. U Chevalier Chardin^ Edition of Amsterdam, 
1711,2, II, 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 27 

the English, followed the sea, and ousted their rivals 
who adhered to caravans. When Clavijo returned to 
Pera after his wreck, he found " six Venetian galleys at 
the great city ... to meet the ships which were com- 
ing from Tana." And the Genoese were more active 
than the Venetians. The Persians always shunned 
the water. Tavemier mentioned that a caravan left 
Constantinople every two months for Persia, and the 
one he joined at Sm3n:na for Ispahan numbered 
twelve hundred horses and camels. The Greeks in 
700 B.C. held the same advantage as the Italians of 
the Middle Ages, only in a greater degree. The most 
intelligent and enterprising of all the ancient races, 
they faced the danger of the voyage to Trebizond 
in order to benefit by its economy ; and they earned 
their reward. In those early days central Asia was 
more flourishing than it ever has been since, for then 
none of its commerce had been diverted. When 
Clavijo lived, the routes were being abandoned, and 
yet he visited a land which, although it had been 
invaded, devastated, and superseded as a thorough- 
fare, still impressed him as opulent. For instance, 
the Spaniard described Nishapoor as " very large, and 
well supplied with all things. . . . the neighborhood 
is very populous and fertile "... where one of his 
suite named Gomez was lodged in a good house, and 
attended by the best doctors ; " but it pleased God that 
the said Gomez should end his days at this place." 
Nishapoor is now a ruinous village with a population 
estimated at eight thousand. Tabriz, though decayed, 
still remains one of the most prosperous cities of 
Persia. " The city of Tabriz is very large and rich, 
owing to the quantity of merchandise that passes 



28 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

through it every day. They say that in former days 
it was more populous ; but even now there are more 
than two hundred thousand inhabited houses. There 
are also many market-places, in which they sell very 
clean and well-dressed meat, cooked in a variety of 
ways, and plenty of fruit. ... In this city there are 
many very rich and beautiful mosques, and the finest 
baths that, I believe, can be seen in the whole world." ^ 
Two hundred thousand inhabited houses indicated a 
population approximating a million ; but about 1680, 
though Chardin spoke of Tabriz with enthusiasm " as 
a really great and powerful city, whose commerce 
extended through Persia, Muscovy, Tartary, India, 
and the Black Sea," he computed that she possessed 
no more than fifteen thousand dwellings, or, in other 
words, that the population had shrunk to less than 
one hundred thousand. At present the buildings of 
Tabriz are mean, the only remains of former grandeur 
being the ruins of the Blue Mosque and the citadel. 

The movement northward of the current of travel 
to the road leading across Siberia to Moscow on the 
one hand, and the discovery of the ocean voyage 
round the Cape of Good Hope to India and China on 
the other, killed this ancient civilization. In the fif- 
teenth century, though the revolution was in progress, 
it had not been completed. A remnant of the Indian 
trade still survived. 

At Sultanieh, Clavijo found that each year " very 
large caravans of camels arrived, with great quantities 
of merchandise. . . . Every year many merchants 
come here from India, with spices, such as cloves, nut- 
megs, cinnamon, . . . and other precious articles 

^ Embassy to Timour, 90, 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 29 

which do not go to Alexandria." ^ When the eastern 
trade split, and, to avoid the Pamirs, either passed 
by sea to Europe or else went north by Siberia, 
the civilization of central Asia died. Therefore, 
to judge of Bactra in her prime, our only resource 
is to recall what remained at Samarkand, just as 
the age of splendor closed. Thus Clavijo described 
a lesser palace of Tamerlane. " In the centre of the 
garden there was a very beautiful house, built in the 
shape of a cross, and very richly adorned with orna- 
ments. In the middle of it there were three chambers, 
for placing beds and carpets in, and the walls were 
covered with glazed tiles. Opposite the entrance, in 
the largest of the chambers, there was a silver gilt 
table, as high as a man, and three arms broad, on the 
top of which there was a bed of silk cloths, embroid- 
ered with gold . . . and here the lord was seated. 
The walls were hung with rose-colored silk cloths, orna- 
mented with plates of silver gilt, set with emeralds, 
pearls, and other precious stones, tastefully arranged. 
... In the centre of the house, opposite the door, 
there were two gold tables, each standing on four legs, 
and the table and legs were all in one. They were each 
five palmos long, and three broad ; and seven golden 
phials stood upon them, two of which were set with 
large pearls, emeralds, and turquoises, and each one 
had a ruby near the mouth. There were also six round 
golden cups, one of which was set with large round 
clear pearls, inside, and in the centre of it there was a 
ruby, two fingers broad, and of a brilliant color. The 
ambassadors were invited to this feast by the lord." ^ 
Thus the prize for which so much blood was to be 

1 Embassy to Timour^ 93. * Udd,^ 136. 



30 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

spilled, and the paths along which that prize had to 
be sought, become visible. Twelve hundred years 
before Christ, Asiatics and Europeans began their 
struggle for the control of the avenues of the eastern 
trade which radiated from Bactra. The Assyrians 
met defeat in Armenia and perished. The Greeks 
forced the Dardanelles and opened the Euxine. The 
gold of Lydia drew commerce overland toward the 
Maeander, at whose mouth, near where the caravans 
halted, the Greeks made their first lodgment pn the 
continent. From Miletus, spreading north and east- 
ward, always reaching out toward the sources of 
supply, the Greeks girdled the basin of the Black 
Sea until they held every outlet in their hands, the 
whole system of traffic converging on the isthmus of 
Corinth. 

Toward the end of the seventh century before 
Christ the work appears to have been completed, 
and when the complex yet elastic mechanism oper- 
ated, its shock proved resistless. Forthwith Nineveh 
and Babylon, being undersold, languished, and by 
650 the prophet Nahum pronounced his diatribe: 
"Woe to the bloody city! Nineveh is laid waste; 
who will bemoan her ? ** In 606 Nineveh fell, never 
to rise again; and when, two hundred years later, 
Xenophon passed her crumbling walls, her very name 
had been forgotten. Babylon fared little better. In 
538 Belshazzar, when feasting, read the handwriting 
on the wall; that same night he died; and thence- 
forward the Persians ruled in Chaldea. Thus the 
vitality of Mesopotamia ebbed, for the life-blood no 
longer ran through the arteries which centred at her 
heart. But as the same life-blood which had once 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 31 

invigorated Asia permeated Greece, she blossomed 
like the rose, and as no doom has ever quite had the 
terror of the doom of Nineveh, so no bloom has ever 
equalled the flowering of Hellas. Almost within a 
generation the peninsula stood transfigured. During 
the Mycenaean Age, Greece, like other predatory 
communities, had been subject to a military caste, 
whose castles dominated the towns, — grim strong* 
holds like Tiryns, the lairs of the pirate and the 
slaver. With the opening of the trade routes east 
and west, the aspect of civilization changed. Tra- 
dition has preserved the memory of the so-called 
Doric invasion ; but this invasion may not improba- 
bly have been the democratic revolution, which, be- 
ginning in the north, swept gradually through the 
Peloponnesus. Certainly a social upheaval followed 
upon the rise of a trading class; and as this class 
waxed rich and powerful, the palace vanished from 
the acropolis, and in its stead appeared the temple, 
that exquisite civic decoration, which transformed 
the warriors* donjon into the public pleasure-ground. 
As usual, in Greece as elsewhere, architecture, for 
him who will read the language of the stones, tells 
the tale of civilization more eloquently than any writ- 
ten book. When thus read, among all the stones of 
Greece, none speak more movingly than those noble 
columns which still stand upon the shore of the Gulf 
of Corinth. On either side of the isthmus, iEgina 
and Corinth were the two ports where ships dis- 
charged their freight, and these two towns were 
accordingly the first in Hellas to feel the exhilaration 
of success. Therefore, at iEgina and Corinth the 
oldest temples still stand to reveal to us the secret 



32 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

of their birth. Long before Athens dreamed of su- 
premacy at sea, Corinth had achieved maritime great- 
ness, and the Corinthians furnished the Athenians 
with the ships to destroy their enemy JEgina,, an 
enemy whom Corinth afterward would gladly have 
resuscitated. Originally, doubtless, like Mycenae, 
Corinth had a king who lived in a castle perched 
upon the mountain which overhangs the bay. Cer- 
tainly a castle stood there for ages after classic Corinth 
died, and probably ruins of the archaic fortress would 
be found embedded amidst the walls of the mediaeval 
keep, could the Acro-Corinth be excavated. Were 
those remains found, what must now be presented as 
an historical theory would be demonstrated as a fact 
The first effect of the democratic revolution at 
Corinth must have been to bring down the popula- 
tion from the mountain to the shore, then the castle 
crumbled, and in its stead arose those monolithic 
columns, which remain one of the most impressive 
memorials in the world. For, from the building of 
that temple we must date the birth of the civilization 
we now behold about us, and with the building of 
that temple opened the struggle for survival of 
Babylon, Tyre, and Carthage, with Greece and Rome, 
which only ended with the victory of Alexander over 
Darius, and of Scipio over Hannibal. 

When the temple of Corinth arose, Mesopotamia 
was already sinking, and Darius, when he succeeded 
Belshazzar, could no more withstand his destiny than 
a log can withstand the torrent of the Mississippi. 
When two economic systems compete, they are apt 
either to consolidate or to fight ; and between Greece 
and Asia commercial rivalry had reached an inten- 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 33 

sity which engenders war. The convulsion which 
was to last two centuries began, in 546, B.C. with the 
attack of Cyrus on Lydia and the defeat of Croesus. 
The Persians succeeded where the Assyrians failed, 
and absorbed Asia Minor. Then Darius invaded 
Russia, an expedition only to be accounted for on 
the theory that he intended to cut off the Greek 
cities on the northern coast of the Euxine from the 
interior. To accomplish this, he perhaps attempted 
to occupy the narrow neck of land between the 
Volga and the Don,^ for by ascending the Volga and 
descending the Don, commerce passed from the Cas- 
pian to the Sea of Azov. From this source Pantica- 
paeum, the chief of these northern cities, drew her 
wealth. 

Defeated in Scythia, Darius invaded Greece. In 
505 B.C. he overran Imbros and Lemnos, captured 
Chalcedon, and occupied both shores of the Bos- 
phorus. Then the Ionian cities revolted, and Mile- 
tus was sacked. In 490 b.c. Darius pushed forward 
a reconnaissance to Marathon, and met with a re- 
verse. Appreciating the gravity of the crisis, he with- 
drew, and began those preparations which recall the 
effort of Philip II. to fit out the Armada. In the 
midst of his labor he died. His death, however, 
altered nothing. Herodotus ascribed to Xerxes only 
the conviction of his contemporaries, when he made 
him answer in these words the remonstrance of 
Artabanus against the prosecution of his father's 
enterprise : — 

" It is not possible for either party to retreat, but 

^See the maps and comments in The Geographical System of 
Herodotus, James Rennell, i, 133 ^/ seq, 
D 



34 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

the alternative lies before us to do or to suffer ; so 
that all these dominions must fall under the power 
of the Grecians, or all theirs under that of the 
Persians ; for there is no medium in this enmity." ^ 
In 485 B.C., when Xerxes came to the throne, the 
Babylonian economic system formed, as it were, a 
segment of the periphery of a vast ellipse, of which 
the Greek markets at the isthmus of Corinth and at 
Syracuse were the foci. Along the periphery of this 
ellipse were ranged many peoples inhabiting the 
region stretching from the Oxus to Gibraltar, and 
including Bactra, the Punjab, Persia, Mesopotamia, 
Phoenicia, Egypt, North Africa, and part of Spain ; 
practically the Saracenic dominions of the Middle 
Ages, only more extended toward the east. This 
vast mass, though politically unconsolidated, was 
sufficiently stimulated by a common danger to cast 
itself, at a given moment, on its foe. The Persians 
invaded Greece Proper, the Carthaginians attacked 
Sicily, and the battles of Salamis and Himera are 
said to have been fought upon the same day. Cer- 
tainly they formed parts of a single campaign, and 
the defeat of Xerxes by Themistocles, and of Hamil- 
car by Gelon, pierced the centre of the coalition. 
Then the wings fell asunder, and the work of destroy- 
ing the vanquished in detail began. As between the 
two wings, the Babylonian and Carthaginian, the 
latter showed more vitality, for Carthage drew her 
nutriment from the mines of Spain, while Mesopota- 
mia existed solely as a centre of exchanges. How 
rapidly Asia sank may be measured by her loss of 
military energy. The Greeks thought their success 

1 Herod, vii. 11, 



L THE NEW EMPIRE 35 

at Plataea in 479 extraordinary, although they ad- 
mitted putting in the field upward of i io,ocx> men, of 
whom 39,cxx) were hoplites, against the 300,ocx) light- 
armed troops led by Mardonius, and the Greeks did 
not underestimate their prowess. Likewise, the Per- 
sians were exhausted by a painful journey, and a 
winter in an inhospitable land. Only eighty years 
later Xenophon marched with io,ocx) mercenaries 
from Sardis to Babylon, and from Babylon to 
Trapezus. 

During this period of eighty years the fortunes of 
Hellas culminated. Greece failed to consolidate at 
this juncture, and expand vigorously westward, partly, 
no doubt, because of the Greek inaptitude for politi- 
cal administration, but chiefly because of her physical 
conformation. The lines of trade crossed her diago- 
nally and not longitudinally, so that her provinces 
had few or no common material interests. Further- 
more, while her commercial centre lay at the isthmus 
of Corinth, which was the cheapest point in the basin 
of the iEgaeum for the distribution of cargoes bound 
west, her industrial centre was situated at the silver 
mines of Laurium, near Cape Sunium. Accordingly, 
the interests of Athens and Corinth were antagonistic, 
as the Athenian commerce lay to the east and the 
Corinthian to the west, and formed two distinct and 
competing commercial systems. 

Moreover, Athens could not conquer Corinth, 
not only because Corinth occupied a strong position 
on the other side of the isthmus, almost unassailable 
by Athens either by land or water, but because 
Corinth served as a rampart to Sparta ; and Sparta 
could not let her be destroyed for fear of disaster to 



36 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

herself. Therefore, two irreconcilable economic sys- 
tems overthrew each other. Athens impinged on 
Corinth ; and Corinth, retaliating, allied herself with 
Sparta. The Peloponnesian War ensued as a logical 
effect, and the expedition against Syracuse formed 
an episode of the Peloponnesian War. The loss 
of the army of Nicias in 413, and the defeat of 
iEgospotamus in 405 B.C., together with the gradual 
failure of the silver of Laurium, exhausted the 
Athenian vitality, and with the decline of Athens the 
dream of Greek expansion toward the west ended. 

But although the vitality of ancient Hellas flickered 
low after the Peloponnesian War, Macedon retained 
her vigor, largely because she possessed richer mines 
than Attica. In 356 Philip annexed Thrace up to 
the Nestus, founding the city of Philippi in the heart 
of the region about Mount Pangeus, where lay the 
gold. This gold Philip worked so successfully that 
he obtained a yearly revenue of 1,000 talents, or ten- 
fold the return of Laurium to Athens at the time of 
Salamis ; and before the death of Alexander the total 
yield had exceeded 30,000 talents. Fortified with 
this treasure, Alexander invaded Asia. Alexander is, 
perhaps, the highest specimen of the Greek intellect, 
astonishing alike in its strength and weakness. Un- 
rivalled as an economic conception, his empire failed 
as an administrative mechanism. In approaching his 
task he showed a profound knowledge and apprecia- 
tion of the geographical conditions which governed 
the relations between Asia and Europe, but in execu- 
tion his structure, like all efforts of classic Greeks at 
centralization, lacked cohesion. 

Of the five avenues in use at Alexander's birth, 



1 THE NEW EMPIRE 37 

between central Asia and the Mediterranean, Persia 
controlled all but the Euxine, for the ocean voyage 
to Egypt had not been attempted. All of these 
Alexander undertook to concentrate in a single 
system, and, besides, to open direct communication 
between India and the Nile by sea. 

Starting from his base upon the Hellespont 
Alexander's first task was to isolate Persia by 
crushing Phoenicia, the ancient maritime rival of 
Greece, who had made Persia formidable at Salamis 
by furnishing her with ships. This he accomplished, 
after defeating Darius at Issus, by the siege and 
capture of Tyre, possibly the most extraordinary feat 
in his extraordinary career. After subjugating 
Phoenicia he proceeded to the Nile, examined the 
delta, and selected Alexandria as the best outlet 
for the southern water-route which he contem- 
plated. The experience of two thousand years has 
justified his judgment. This done, he turned toward 
the interior. His problem was to consolidate the 
avenues of communication ; to do so he marched en- 
tirely round the vast triangle in central Asia whose 
base is formed by a line drawn from Bactra to 
Pattala and whose apex lies at Babylon. Crossing 
the Euphrates at Thapsacus, he moved on Nineveh by 
Haran, over the ground which had been disputed for 
centuries by the Assyrians; and having defeated 
Darius at Arbela, he advanced south as far as 
Persepolis. Thence turning north, he marched by 
Ecbatana on Ragae, finally reaching Samarkand. 
He passed the winter of 328 at Bactra, and, in the 
spring, ventured to invade India by the series of 
passes which begin with Bamian and end with the 



38 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Khyber, following the road by Kabul, even yet 
imperfectly known to Europeans. Incredible as it 
seems, he gained the Indus with small loss, and, 
having vanquished Porus on the Hydaspes, pacified 
the Punjab, and in 326 B.C. descended the river to 
the delta. There dividing his force, he sent Nearchus 
to explore the Arabian Sea, while he proceeded to 
Babylon by way of Susa. He established police by 
building cities at strategic points along the roads, 
sometimes but a day's journey from each other. 

Nothing can be more fatuous than to regard the cam- 
paigns of soldiers like Alexander, Caesar, or Jenghiz 
Khan as the result of ambition or caprice; for the 
soldier is a natural force, like the flood or the whirlwind. 
He breaks down obstructions otherwise insuperable. 
Alexander's battles were but an incident in a process 
which only ended with Actium. His function was 
to centralize; and that he understood his destiny 
is clear from his answer to the embassy sent him 
by Darius during the siege of Tyre : " As it would 
be impossible for order to reign in the world with 
two suns, so it is impossible for the earth to be 
at peace with two masters. " 

Alexander dealt with converging economic systems 
which, because they converged, could be consolidated. 
As usual under such circumstances, social amalgama- 
tion preceded political unification, and a fusion of 
commercial interests laid the basis of the Roman 
Empire. This is proved by the voluntary reform of 
the coinage under Alexander, as well as by the spread 
of the Greek language throughout the Levant. 

Among the many debts which civilization owes 
the Greeks, none is deeper than that due for the 



1. THE NEW EMPIRE 39 

invention of the coinage ; for whether money was 
first struck in Lydia or iEgina, the conception of a 
currency is Greek and not Asiatic. Indeed, the 
Asiatic races never accepted the coinage kindly, for 
the Asiatics have always been slow ; and perhaps the 
introduction of a currency accelerated social move- 
ment more powerfully than any innovation during the 
historic period of antiquity. By a currency com- 
mercial transfers are made cheap and rapid, and inter- 
national banking on a large scale becomes possible. 
To work well, however, the currency should be uni- 
form, as the fluctuations of various standards entail 
loss in exchange. Under the archaic system each city 
struck its own money, — the disadvantage whereof 
the Greeks soon perceived ; and one of the greatest 
triumphs of the Greek mind was the adoption of a 
common standard of value imder Alexander ; an 
achievement to be attributed to voluntary and in- 
telligent cooperation, and not to physical force. 

Throughout Alexander's nominal dominions, many 
of the most opulent cities retained their privileges, 
the coinage among the rest; especially in Thrace, 
Asia Minor, and Phoenicia. These cities struck the 
imperial tetradrachma, by their own authority, and 
for their own convenience, and maintained the 
standard long after Alexander's death.^ Modern 
Europe has not yet done as much. 

Under the conditions which prevailed in ancient 
times, expansion ended with the establishment of the 
Roman Empire, and with the termination of expansion 
an equilibrium between the East and West could not 
be long maintained. The reason is obvious. The 

^ Numismatiquc d* Alexandre le Grand^ L. Muller, 91. 



40 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Romans, though great soldiers and administrators, 
were uninventive. They never learned to manufacture 
any article which commanded the Oriental market 
and served as a means of balancing their purchases. 
Neither did they explore, or improve their ships. 
Therefore the Mediterranean remained always, for 
them, a closed ellipse, not rich enough in metal to 
sustain a prolonged drain, especially under the waste- 
ful Roman methods. This ellipse, divided into three 
basins by the peninsulas of Greece and Italy, varied 
in resources, the central basin being poor. Develop- 
ment, accordingly, began at the extreme east, probably 
first in Cyprus and afterward in Lydia, and for many 
centuries remained in the hands of Asiatics. At 
length the Greeks began to compete, and, settling 
at the mouth of the Maeander, they gradually con- 
centrated transportation in their hands. 

If a line be drawn north and south through Miletus, 
it bisects the ancient civilization according to its apti- 
tudes. To the east of that line lay the lands which 
led in agriculture and industries; to the west, 
those producing minerals and soldiers. Egypt, for 
example, grew grain at a profit, at prices which ex- 
terminated the Italian farmers; Egypt, Phoenicia, 
India, and China readily undersold Europe in manu- 
factures ; while spices, gems, and perfumes were a 
natural monopoly of Arabia, India, and Ceylon. 
These commodities were coveted by Greeks and 
Romans ; but Greeks and Romans could offer nothing 
in exchange which Orientals would accept, save met- 
als, and consequently metals flowed eastward ; a fact 
proved by the abundance of Athenian coins found in 
Asia, as well as by the statements of Pliny. 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 41 

Under such conditions the basin of the iEgaeum 
became the seat of empire, because it not only afforded, 
for several centuries, the most convenient market for 
merchandise consigned westward, but it furnished 
metals for exchange and soldiers for police. 

Copper came from Cyprus, close at hand; iron 
from the Euxine, from Bithynia, Pontus, and the 
Caucasus. The Urals, then as now, were rich in 
minerals, and every Greek city east of the Azov sent 
caravans into the interior to buy.^ Herodotus stated 
that for such an expedition ten interpreters were 
needed. More important still, the whole coast of the 
iEgaeum teemed with gold and silver. Lydia yielded 
gold and electrum, Attica silver, and Macedon gold. 
Therefore, commerce tended to discharge through 
the Dardanelles in a stream which, passing over the 
isthmus of Corinth, flowed west by Sicily toward 
north Italy, Gaul, and Spain. 

These conditions lasted until the demand on the 
resources of the country became too great to be sup- 
plied by the mines of so limited a region, and recourse 
was had to Spain. 

Then, as mineral production moved westward, the 
central market moved to correspond. Conceivably, 
it might have grown up at almost any point in the 
middle basin ; at Carthage, at Syracuse, or at Rome. 
Rome probably prevailed, not only because of the 
superior military quality of her people, but because 
of the relatively large territory tributary to her ; ' a 
territory which even then may have extended to the 
North Sea. The bronzes found along the roads in- 
dicate an extensive trade. Yet wherever the central 

1 Die Geschickte des Eisens^ Beck, I., 275, 6. 



42 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

market might have been, there could have been 
but one, for the lines of transportation converged 
at a single point in Spain, and Spain could not have 
remained under a divided ownership. The cost would 
have been too great. One rival or the other must 
have perished. Even the burden of one empire 
proved too heavy to be borne. It had hardly come 
into being before decay began. 

A single administrative system, with a machinery 
complex enough to police roads, administer justice, 
and unify the coinage, is an economy provided the 
revenue to be administered is commensurate with the 
charges of administration. But the expense of cen- 
tralized administration, always great, in ancient times 
was crushing because of the narrowness of commercial 
exchanges. The resources of the East were exhaust- 
less, those of the West limited because of industrial 
incapacity and the failure to expand beyond the 
Rhine in search of metal. Had rivalry in Spain 
necessitated a double political organization, the decay 
of the West would have been almost immediate, 
possibly as rapid as the collapse of Alexander's em- 
pire. 

In fact, the Romans expelled the Carthaginians 
from the Iberian peninsula in 207 b.c, and thence- 
forward hardly met with serious resistance, because 
they alone had the means of organizing a competent 
army. Then Rome gradually culminated. She ap- 
pears to have reached her meridian before she had 
spent all the plunder brought from Gaul by Caesar, or 
near the opening of the Christian era. The precise 
date is immaterial, for the period of equilibrium was 
short, and the decline, once begun, rapid. In the 



I. THE NEW EMPIRE 43 

year 9, after the defeat of Varus, Augustus could not 
replace the army the Germans had destroyed; and 
under Trajan, toward 100, an agricultural crisis pre- 
vailed, which lasted until the end. A century later 
silver had grown so scarce that the currency could 
not be sustained, and toward 220 a.d. the government 
of Elagabalus repudiated. In 284 a.d. Diocletian 
withdrew the capital to the shore of the Propontis, 
and Rome ceased to be a general market. 

The dominant market receded, precisely as it had 
advanced, in the wake of commercial exchanges; 
and commercial exchanges ceased to be possible, on 
a large scale, in the Mediterranean countries after 
the mines had failed. When no income remained 
to be administered, the machinery of administration 
passed out of existence. There was no barbarian 
conquest. There was a resolution of an economic 
consolidation into its elements. 

Lastly, as the cohesive energy waned and the prov- 
inces fell asunder, the archaic conditions revived. 
Competition reopened, and three empires once more 
appeared upon the three main highways leading from 
east to west. One rose on the Tigris, one on the 
Bosphorus, and one on the Nile, and amidst the wars 
between the Persians, the Byzantines, and the Sara- 
cens the Middle Ages dawned. 



CHAPTER II 

The Western Empire died because the predomi- 
nant race in the basin of the Mediterranean failed, 
after the opening of the Christian era, to develop the 
qualities necessary for survival under the conditions 
which then prevailed. The struggle for supremacy, 
among the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans, 
had lasted for upward of one thousand years. The 
Phoenicians had succumbed rather early in the con- 
flict ; the Greeks, though highly gifted in many direc- 
tions, lacked the administrative energy which alone 
creates social cohesion; while the Latins, excelling 
as administrators and soldiers, were intellectually 
inflexible. 

This rigidity wrought their destruction. Although, 
soon after their career of plunder closed, it became 
evident that nothing but expansion and industries 
could save them from annihilation, the Latins made 
no serious effort. On the contrary, when their 
armies met with a decisive check in Germany, they 
resigned themselves to starvation, without relaxing 
their contemptuous intolerance of the arts as a means 
of subsistence for freemen. As explorers they did 
little more than tread in the footsteps of their prede- 
cessors; and though they worked the Spanish ores 
for six hundred years, it is doubtful whether they 
ever improved the methods bequeathed them by the 
Carthaginians. 

44 




[»/« 



Cmcow 





CHAP. 11. THE NEW EMPIRE 45 

There could have been no reason, save incompe- 
tence, why England should not have yielded wool as 
fine under the Caesars as under the Carlovingians ; 
the Gauls wove good cloths, although no one put 
them on the eastern market. Pliny, and the men of 
his generation, knew and lamented the drain of metal 
to the East, and yet no one could suggest a com- 
modity wherewith to make exchange. A civilization 
thus wasteful fell, a race thus incapable perished, 
and Nature addressed herself to developing a new 
type. In about six centuries she achieved her task ; 
but, as the mediaeval mind was moulded by the 
conditions which created it, a glance at European 
geography should precede a survey of European 
history. 

Throughout the Middle Ages very small streams 
were used for transportation, because of the cost 
of land carriage; therefore the flow of the rivers 
determined the lines of travel and the shape of 
empires. 

In reality Europe and Asia form but a single conti- 
nent, Europe being a long, narrow, and indented 
peninsula, thrust out from the vast mass of Asia. 
The almost imperceptible rise of the Urals can 
hardly be considered a scientific boundary, but, 
assuming that Europe stretches eastward as far as 
the modern maps indicate, the core of the continent 
will be found to be divided into three transverse sec- 
tions by waterways which do not converge. 

First, a network of rivers connects the Caspian and 
Black Seas with the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic. 
The same rivers, with their lateral branches, may be 
navigated almost as conveniently east and west, and 



46 THE NEW EMHRE CHAP. 

taken thus they unite the Urals with the Gulf of 
Finland. This region is Russia. 

Second, from the mountains which form the back- 
bone of Europe, four streams flow north into the 
Baltic and the North Sea; the Oder, the Elbe, the 
Weser, and the Rhine. As the valleys of these 
rivers are nearly parallel, the inhabitants during the 
Middle Ages had no very intimate relations with each 
other because relatively little commerce passed from 
valley to valley. Consequently Germany did not 
centralize before the invention of the locomotive. 

Lastly, at the end of the peninsula, the Seine, the 
Rhone and Sadne, and the Loire, emptying into the 
English Channel, the Gulf of Lyons, and the Atlantic, 
converge toward their sources. Therefore France 
early consolidated. 

Spain and England lay isolated, and, for present 
purposes, may be ignored. It suffices to observe, that 
neither Spain, England, nor Italy were so situated 
that amalgamation was possible, either among them- 
selves, or with the economic systems of the rest of 
the continent. 

Scientifically speaking, with the Vistula begins 
the isthmus which connects Europe with Asia. This 
isthmus comprises the region between the rivers 
which join the Black Sea and the Baltic; that is to 
say, ,the region between the Danube, south and east 
of Buda, and the Vistula, or the Dniester and the 
Vistula, on the west, and the Dnieper, the Lovat, the 
Volkhoff, Lake Ladoga, and the Neva, on the east. 
This isthmus, shaped somewhat like a triangle, has 
its apex on the Black Sea between Odessa and Kher- 
son, with a base extending from Dantzic to Peters- 



11. THE NEW EMPIRE 47 

burg. It contained, if the Dniester be taken as the 
western boundary, Poland, Lithuania, the possessions 
of the Teutonic knights, and Novgorod, to which 
must be added Hungary, as far as Pesth, if that 
boundary be extended to the Danube. 

To the east of the Dnieper and the Lovat stretched 
the wastes of Russia, closed to the north, and 
traversed by the network of rivers which, emptying 
into the Azov, the Caspian, or the Arctic, may be 
navigated almost without interruption as far east as 
Lake Baikal Russia, therefore, between the Volga 
and the Vistula, but more especially between the 
Dnieper and the Vistula, may be regarded as a debat- 
able land sometimes adhering to Europe and some- 
times to Asia. 

Men expressly evolved to replace others who 
have perished through incompetence usually display 
strength where their predecessors have been weak, 
and so it proved in the Middle Ages. No modem 
nation like the Latins has won supremacy purely by 
arms; modem success has been achieved rather 
by technical ingenuity, genius for exploration, and 
mental flexibility. 

These characteristics appeared at the outset. The 
mediaeval city grew from the guild, and the first efforts 
to accumulate capital took the shape of manufactur- 
ing for export. Long before the discovery of the 
German mines Flemings wove the English wool, and 
Flemish cloths sold in Bagdad. Charlemagne adver- 
tised them throughout central Asia by sending them 
as gifts to Haroun-al-Rashid. He did nothing for 
other manufactures. He chose horses and dogs for 
the remainder of his presents. 



48 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

The probability is that most of the revenue which 
Charlemagne relied on to support his administration 
came from the woollen trade, and that the industry 
could not bear the taxation is demonstrated by the 
collapse of the dmpire. The raw material, grown 
in England, crossed the Channel to Bruges, and the 
manufactured product either passed up the Scheldt 
and through Champagne to the Rhone, or else 
reached Cologne by land and Mayence by the Rhine. 
At Mayence the Flemings established their chief sell- 
ing agency, and sent their goods into Italy, either up 
the Rhine to Basel and Lausanne, and over the Great 
St. Bernard to Genoa or Milan; or else by Con- 
stance, Coire, and the Septimer. Little or nothing 
went by Ratisbon before the crusades, as the Huns 
closed the Danube.^ The line of the imperial custom- 
houses ran through Magdeburg, Erfurt, Hallstadt, 
Forchheim, Pf reimt, Ratisbon, and Lorch. The heart 
of the organism lay at Aix-la-Chapelle, about mid- 
way between the French and the Rhenish waterways. 
It could hardly have done so had not the Flemish 
industries been the chief source of wealth, and the 
Rhine and the Meuse the chief arteries of commerce. 

The vices of such a consolidation speak for them- 
selves. In the first place, the length of road to 
be guarded was out of all proportion to the traffic. 
In the second, as the lines of communication diverged, 
centralized defence was impossible. Each province 
needed its own army, for all were exposed. The 
Elbe could not be fortified, and yet beyond the Elbe 
roved the Huns, the Wends, and other ferocious 
Slavs, while, to the north, Scandinavia poured forth 

^ Histoire du Commerce du Levant^ Heyd, French translation, I., 86. 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 49 

fleets of pirates, who sailed up the rivers, robbing and 
burning to the gates of Paris. Yet even the Vikings 
were less alarming than the Saracens, who swarmed 
in the Mediterranean, and penetrated to the heart of 
the Alps, where they put all commerce to ransom. 
Even as late as 970, during the reign of Otho the 
Great, when a relatively wealthy government labored 
to suppress marauding, the Moslems attacked strong 
caravans. In that year Majolus, abbot of the famous 
convent of Cluny, had travelled to Italy over the 
Septimer, rather than run the risk of brigands on the 
western passes. In haste to return, he made the Great 
St. Bernard, and, in his descent into France, had 
reached the bridge of Orsiferes, when the Saracens 
overtook him and carried him and all his suite into 
captivity. 

No one understood the situation so well as Char- 
lemagne, who dealt with it, and the monk of St. 
Gall has described him weeping, on the coast of the 
English Channel, at the sight of the Norse ships. 
He wept at the thought of the woes to fall upon his 
posterity, for he knew that, with the resources at hand, 
resistance would be futile. 

Civilization could only receive an adequate impul- 
sion from the discovery of minerals, which would 
balance exchanges and place production upon a firm 
basis, and no metals could be obtained until the line 
of the Elbe should be guarded. The core of Ger- 
many lies between the Rhine and the Elbe, for there 
have been found the chief of the metals which have 
made her wealth. Close to the Elbe, and exposed to 
any sudden raid, stand the Harz Mountains, in whose 
midst rises the Rammelsberg, long the richest silver- 



50 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

bearing region of Europe ; while on the higher Elbe, 
just where the river forces its way through the Bohe- 
mian Mountains, are the Erzgebirge, the district of 
which Freiberg is the capital, and which by the twelfth 
century had attained its highest relative importance. 
In the silver and copper mines of the Tyrol, also, 
thirty thousand miners are said to have found em- 
ployment at about this period. 

Nobody knows precisely when the Rammelsberg 
was opened. According to the legend a huntsman of 
Otho the Great, who had ridden a restive horse from 
Harzburg, noticed that the animal had uncovered a 
vein of ore by his pawing. The emperor, afterward 
hearing of the discovery, became convinced of its 
value, and sank the first shaft. He then founded 
Goslar. The probability is that the industry was 
older, and that it lent Henry the Fowler the energy 
to garrison his frontier. For the mediaeval city was 
at once a factory and a garrison. Every burgher 
belonged to a guild, and yet every burgher was also, 
by necessity, an excellent soldier, at least in all that 
touched the defence of his walls. The Harz formed 
the heart of Henry's new kingdom. He turned the 
clump of hills into a citadel. After he had done so, 
modem civilization dawned. When, in 912, Henry I. 
succeeded his father as Duke of Saxony, society 
seemed sinking into chaos. In 924 Henry fortified 
Quedlinburg, which afterward served as his capital, 
and fifty years later his son died emperor of Ger- 
many, the greatest sovereign of his age. 

Goslar, which lies on the northern slope of the 
Harz, and which owed its consequence to the Ram- 
melsberg mines, was certainly one of the oldest free 



*^ 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 5 1 

imperial cities of Germany. Possibly it may have 
been nominally founded by Otho ; but, if no mining 
existed there earlier, it is difficult to comprehend his 
father's policy. Henry planted a castle at Goslar, 
he built a tower at Regenstein in 919, toward the east, 
and he constructed the stronghold of Nordhausen, on 
the southwest, guarding the approach to the Rammels- 
berg along the Zorge ; while directly in the face of 
the Wends he planted his capital of Quedlinburg, 
the centre of his military organization, from whence 
he conducted his campaigns. His policy was to 
make good the line of the Elbe as far as the Erz- 
gebirge, and to this end he invaded Bohemia, and re- 
duced the duke to a tributary. He also defeated the 
Slavs toward the Oder, and established two for- 
tresses, one at Meissen and one higher up the river, to 
overawe southern Saxony. Before the death of his 
son, a chain of cities from Liineburg to Freiburg com- 
manded the frontier, the mines were regularly worked, 
the Elbe could be used as a highway, and the rest was 
but a matter of time. 

The sequence of cause and effect is plain. When 
virgin mines of precious metal began yielding plenti- 
fully, Europe came into possession of a portable 
commodity of universal exchangeable value, at a com- 
paratively low cost. Consequently Europeans could 
trade at a profit, and, as capital augmented and industry 
gathered energy, the cost of policing the thorough- 
fares bore a regularly diminishing ratio to the profit 
earned by the traffic passing over them. The process 
was automatic, and can be gauged by the growth of 
the ports, and the cities at the cross-roads. 
/ \ Otho the Great died in 973, and assuming that the 



52 THE NEW EaiPIRE chap. 

mines of the Rammelsberg came into full operation 
during his life, the stimulus should have been felt 
within about a generation, or toward looo. Of course 
the movement would have been most sensible at 
Venice, the port of Germany, whence the streams of 
commerce diverged which passed down both the Elbe 
and the Rhine. This a priori theory corresponds 
with the facts. 

Venice rose to the dignity of a considerable mari- 
time power under Pietro Orseolo II., in 991. Orseolo 
not only negotiated commercial treaties with the 
Saracenic courts at Aleppo, Cairo, Damascus, and 
Palermo, but he forced the Greek emperor to reduce 
the tax on vessels passing Abydos. In the year 1000 
he defeated the Croatian pirates, and thenceforward 
Venice held undisputed control of the Adriatic. In 
the tenth century, also, Augsburg, the converging 
point of the roads between South Germany and Italy, 
first built a wall. A low wall, it is true, and without 
towers, but strong enough to twice bid defiance to the 
Huns. In 1050 occurs the earliest reference to Nu- 
remberg, when the Emperor Henry III. held a diet 
there. Had Nuremberg been wealthy, it would have 
been famous long before. About the same period 
Leipsic came into notice, but seems to have grown 
rather slowly, for it was not until 11 70 that the town 
obtained her first considerable grant of privileges. 

According to Beck,^ German weapons were ex- 
ported to India. Cologne was the base of the trade 
to the west, as Liibeck was of the trade to the east. 
The commerce of the Rhine was, of course, always 
more important than the commerce of the Elbe, in 

^ Gesckichte des Eisens, I., 745. 



n, THE NEW EMPIRE 53 

proportion as Flanders and England outweighed 
Sweden and Russia ; Cologne, accordingly, developed 
early. By 1000 a.d. she had her guild-hall in Lon- 
don, which formed the nucleus to which other German 
cities, especially Regensburg and Bremen, adhered. 
From this counter as a core grew the German guild- 
hall, called the Steelyard, in upper Thames Street, 
near London Bridge, which long continued one of 
the most powerful of the London corporations.^ 
The Hanse merchants for several centuries almost 
monopolized the carrying trade of the kingdom, be- 
sides being very influential bankers. Before 1016 
the emperor's subjects had secured the rights of 
Englishmen in the courts. About 1040 the English 
wool trade raised Bruges to the rank of a universal 
market, and weaving spread over the north of France, 
St. Quentin acquiring a charter near 1089. Equal 
activity reigned in the Baltic. Although the Germans 
did not obtain undisputed control of the lower Elbe 
until after the founding of Liibeck in 1 143, and possi- 
bly even of New Hamburg in 1189, commerce flowed 
through such Slavish ports as Jumne on the Oder 
and Dantzic on the Vistula. Written records fail, but 
the quantity of coins found buried in Sweden, and 
more particularly at Wisby in the Island of Gotland, 
prove the diflFusion of the new silver. Not less than 
ten thousand German coins have been found in these 
regions, belonging to the century and a half which 
followed the opening of the Rammelsberg mines, 
those of the reign of Otho III., from 983 to icx)i, 
predominating.^ 

1 Die Geichichte des Eisens, Beck, I., 745, 746. 

* Die ffensestadte und ICdnigWaldemar von D&nemark^ SchSfer, 39. 



54 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

An energetic social movement is usually equivalent 
to expansion ; and as the Atlantic barred migration 
westward, Europeans invaded Asia, both by way of 
the Mediterranean and the Baltic. The age being one 
of faith, the movement took a religious shape, begin- 
ning with the Council of Clermont in 1095, and last- 
ing upward of two centuries. As a civilizing agent, 
the importance of the crusades cannot be overesti- 
mated ; since, though the Franks finally met with de- 
feat, the war proved a powerful intellectual stimulant, 
and also exceedingly profitable. 

The Saracens had advanced farther in the arts 
than the Latin Christians, and served as schoolmas- 
ters, besides learning to be excellent customers. The 
wealth of Egypt threw upon her the chief burden of 
the Prankish wars, but Egypt produced neither iron, 
nor timber for ships, nor a martial population, and she 
had to buy all this material from her enemies. The 
caliphs lowered their tariffs, making special rates 
for Christians; and, though the avarice which 
tempted the Venetians and the Genoese to succor 
their enemies roused the scorn of Moslems, they nev- 
ertheless recruited their Mamelukes with Christian 
slaves, armed them with swords forged by Italians 
and Germans, and built their navies with Dalmatian 
timber. 

Germany served as Egypt's base of supplies. 
At Venice the Germans established their southern 
counting-house, corresponding to the Steelyard in 
London, and called the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. In 
the magazines of the Fondaco the merchants of 
Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Constance, and Vienna 
stored their wares, consisting largely of iron, copper, 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 55 

and woollens for export; and spices, silks, carpets, 
and the like for import. In the courts were loaded 
caravans for the Brenner or the St. Gotthard. The 
industries of southern Germany and Italy flourished. 
The fame of Nuremberg as a manufacturing 
town spread far and wide. Her smiths had no 
superiors north of the Alps. They forged not only 
weapons but peaceful implements, and through the 
technical skill of her metal workers Nuremberg 
made her chief contribution to civilization. Yet Nu- 
remberg yielded to Milan in industries, and, during 
the first crusade, no soldier thought himself perfectly 
equipped without a Milanese sword and armor. 

Although this estimate of the effects which followed 
the working of the Harz and Saxon mines may seem 
exaggerated, the evidence is overwhelming that, down 
to the close of the Middle Ages, minerals lay not only 
at the base of the German industrial system, but at 
the root of German wealth. In the last quarter of 
the fifteenth century the capitalists of southern Ger- 
many outranked even the Italian, and in Augsburg 
and Nuremberg all men of enterprise speculated in 
mines. The famous patrician house of Welser owned 
shares in the silver works at Schneeberg, near the Bo- 
hemian frontier; the Nuremberg families of Fiihrer and 
Schliisselfelder carried on the copper works of Eisle- 
ben, between Halle and Nordhausen, and, in conjunc- 
tion with these, a refining establishment near Arn- 
stedt in Thuringia ; Peter Rummel held silver mines 
in Tyrol, Lucas Semler, smelters in Silesia. In 1482 
George Holzschuher and Ulrich Erkel of Nuremberg 
obtained the monopoly of supplying Bern with the 
silver for coinage, while Holzschuher managed the 



56 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

mint* The list might be prolonged, but to little pur- 
pose, for these names, though once noted, have been 
forgotten. One family of Augsburg bankers is, how- 
ever, still remembered ; and, to prove the part played 
by metals in finance down to the Reformation, it is 
only needful to tell the story of the Fuggers. To 
do them justice requires a review of above two 
hundred years. Old Hans Fugger, the first known 
of the race, being a journeyman weaver, left his vil- 
lage of Graben, in 1367, to seek his fortune in 
Augsburg. By thrift and diligence he advanced in 
the world, and died, in 1409, worth 3000 florins. 
None of his sons particularly distinguished them- 
selves. Andrew, at one time the most prosperous, 
left descendants who became bankrupt. The founder 
of the renowned house was Jacob Fugger II., the 
grandson of Hans, and it was probably through the 
maternal grandfather of Jacob the yoimger, who 
settled in the Tyrolese mining district, that the oppor- 
tunity came which led to fortune. 

Jacob II. went into business in 1473, when foxuteen 
years old, and learned his trade in the Fondaco dei 
Tedeschi in Venice. For some time he and his 
brothers dealt in the old way, in silks and woollens 
and spices, but presently Jacob entered on the 
"more profitable business of exchange and mining.*** 
Mines were then mostly crown property, and the 
best security which the sovereigns had to pledge; 
therefore a great money-lender became, almost of 
course, a mine owner. For example, in 1487, as 
security for a loan of 23,627 florins made to the Arch- 

^ Das ZeiieUter der Fugger^ Ehrenberg, I., 1S9. 
« Ibid., I., 89. 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 57 

duke Siegmund, Jacob received the silver mines of 
Schwarz. The next year, for 150,000 florins, the 
Fugger brothers obtained the grant of the entire 
yield of the Schwarz mines until repayment of the 
debt, — a good bargain in the opinion of the business 
community. In 1495, as part of an extensive invest- 
ment in copper, the Fuggers secured the copper 
works in Neusohl, eighty miles north of Budapest 
in Hungary. To maintain the price of copper they 
organized, in 1498 and 1499, with other Augsburg 
firms, a syndicate for cornering the Venetian market. 
To effect this purpose they shipped their Hungarian 
copper to Antwerp by Cracow, the Vistula, and 
Dantzic.^ To pursue the subject further would be 
tedious, but the statement made by the firm, in 1527, 
shows how mining property and minerals predom- 
inated among the assets.^ 

In mines and mining shares they had invested . . . 270,000 firs. 
In real estate in Augsburg, Antwerp, and elsewhere 150,000 firs. 

Merchandise 380,000 firs. 

Loans 1,650,000 firs. 

Cash 50,000 firs. 

The merchandise consisted mainly of metal. The 
copper in Antwerp alone was valued at above 2(X),ooo 
florins, besides silver and brass. They held Uttle 
cloth, damask, or other wares. The loans were large, 
often secured by pledges of mines. In this gen- 
eration the Fuggers touched their zenith, when in 
the words of the old chronicle of Augsburg, "the 
names of Jacob Fugger and his nephews were known 
in all kingdoms and lands, even in heathendom. 

1 Ibid,, I., 89, 90. a JHd.f I., 122. 



58 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

Emperors, kings, princes, and nobles have sent em- 
bassies to him, the Pope has saluted and embraced 
him as his beloved son, cardinals have stood before 
him. All the merchants of the world have called 
him an enlightened man, and the heathen have 
wondered at him. He has been the jewel of Ger- 
many."^ With the Fuggers, Germany also culmi- 
nated, and German cities attained to a size in the 
fifteenth century which they did not surpass until 
the middle of the nineteenth. Many, like Lubeck, 
actually declined, while Cologne occupied an area 
which sufficed her until the introduction of railways 
revolutionized the valley of the Rhine. This prosper- 
ity came in the main, probably, from the scientific 
development of minerals, but it also depended in 
great degree on commerce. During the Middle Ages, 
the path of commerce lay across Germany, and it was 
the gradual abandonment of the thoroughfares over 
the Alps, for the voyage to Flanders, that wrought 
havoc with such cities as Augsburg, Nuremberg, and 
Lubeck. With the founding of Liibeck, in 1143, 
German commerce may be taken to have passed 
through its tentative period, and to have determined 
on the lines which offered least resistance in passing 
overland from the Mediterranean to the northern seas. 
Speaking generally, Venice proved to be the cheapest 
base, and the Rhine or the Elbe the best avenue. 

Leaving Venice, one route followed the Semmering 
to Vienna and Prague, gaining Lubeck and Hamburg 
by the Elbe ; the Brenner, likewise, fed the Elbe by 
way of Nuremberg and Leipsic. The bulk of the 
travel over the Brenner, however, flowed to the 

^ Doi ZHtaUer der Fugger, I., 11 6. 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 59 

Rhine, descending the Main, and building up Wiirz- 
burg, Frankfort, Mayence, and Cologne. Less com- 
monly merchants crossed Lorabardy to the Septimer, 
and so north by Coire and Ulm to Speyer ; or they 
may even have preferred the St. Gotthard and Basel ; 
but whichever route the Germans chose, the great 
highways finally ended in well-established termini, 
both to the east and west, where Hanseatic count- 
ing-houses of capital importance flourished. The 
thoroughfare of the Rhine led through Cologne to 
Bruges and London ; that of the Elbe through Lubeck 
to Novgorod, which was reached by the Gulf of Fin- 
land, the Neva, and the Volkhoff. 

As Schaffer has remarked, " He who follows with 
watchful eyes the bloom of these mediaeval communi- 
ties will recall the drama of those world cities which, 
in our own days, have suddenly from nothing sprung 
into being on a newly cultivated soil." ^ Lubeck 
only became a German town in 1143, and Vienna 
a capital in 1 1 56, yet both were famous at the close 
of the century. No story is better known than 
that of Coeur de Lion, who chose the Vienna route 
to London, on his return from Palestine in 1192, 
and was arrested at Erdberg between Vienna and 
Prague. He excited suspicion by sending his servant 
with his ring to the capital to buy food, while he 
remained at the village disguised. 

Lubeck owed her consequence to the development 
of the whole basin of the Baltic, but particularly of 
northern Russia. For centuries Novgorod had been 
a considerable market. From its foundation Con- 
stantinople had imported grain, — at first from Egypt, 

^ Die Hansesmatet 50. 



6o THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

but after the advent of the Saracens, from the Euxine. 
Amru occupied Alexandria in 640, and from the 
cessation of the distribution of African wheat by 
Heraclius, the demand was transferred to the valleys 
of the Danube and the Dnieper. The Eastern Empire 
had two periods of grandeur, one under Justinian, 
about the beginning of the sixth century; the other 
toward the close of the tenth. 

The Byzantine Empire, which, after the reign of 
Justinian, had languished, fell to the lowest depth of 
indigence under Heraclius; but from the beginning 
of the eighth century a steady recovery set in, which 
brought Constantinople to high prosperity about 950. 
As the wealth of the Greeks grew their expenditure 
increased, and the Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, was 
lost in admiration at the magnificence of their 
garments. Such a population not only bought food 
on a vast scale, but the more costly furs, and 
the region from which they drew their supplies 
flourished proportionately. The Bulgarian kingdom, 
bordering the Danube, rose from barbarism to affluence 
and refinement, and the waterway which led through 
Russia from the Black Sea to the Baltic became 
studded with flourishing cities. The chief of these 
were Kieff and Smolensk on the Dnieper, and Nov- 
gorod on the Volkhoff. Novgorod the Great, l)ring 
at the point where the Volkhoff enters Lake Ilmen, 
having connection with the Gulf of Finland by Lake 
Ladoga and the Neva, and being the point where 
traffic, ascending the Volga and the Dnieper, and 
seeking an outlet on the Baltic, converged, was an 
emporium open alike to the north, south, east, and 
west. As it flourished when it supplied the Byzan- 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 6l 

tines and the Asiatics with sables and ermines, so it 
flourished when the market moved northwestward and 
established itself near Paris. 

The prosperity of the Fairs of Champagne is, per- 
haps, the capital phenomenon of mediaeval history, 
for it indicated the transfer of the focus of wealth 
and energy from the borders of Asia to a spot 
adjacent to the Atlantic, a greater economic rev- 
olution than had ever happened previously. The 
rise of Champagne and the fall of Constantinople 
were precisely contemporaneous. The earliest men- 
tion of the fairs is in a deed by Hugh, Count of 
Troyes, dated in 1114. The plundering of Con- 
stantinople by Alexius Comnenus took place in 1081, 
and may be accepted as the beginning of the end. 
About 1200 the Fairs of Champagne reached their 
prime, and the wealth which poured into the adjacent 
provinces is attested by the unparalleled splendor of 
the architecture of the period. No monuments so 
superb as the French cathedrals of the early thir- 
teenth century have ever been constructed in Europe. 
At this precise moment, in the year 1204, Constan- 
tinople fell before the arms of the crusaders, and her 
people were plunged in ruin. 

This migration of the dominant market from the 
Bosphorus to the Atlantic altered the whole social and 
political complexion of Russia. Her customers lived 
no longer in the south, to be reached only by the high- 
way of the Dnieper, but to the west, through the Baltic 
and the North seas. The Baltic is a dangerous and 
stormy sea, and the cost of its navigation was increased 
by the risk and delay of passing through the sound, 
and also by the toll there collected from shipping. 



62 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

It SO happens, however, that on either side of the 
isthmus, where the promontory of Denmark joins 
the mainland, two rivers have their outlet, — the Trave 
entering the Baltic, and the Elbe the German Ocean. 
The portage between these rivers is short, and accord- 
ingly two of the most famous cities of mediaeval 
Germany grew up side by side, forming for many pur- 
poses a single corporation. These cities were Liibeck 
and Hamburg, and they flourished exceedingly, since 
they served as the distributing point, not only of the 
merchandise which descended the Elbe from Venice, 
but of the coasting trade between Russia and the 
ports of Flanders. That trade was considerable in 
volume and of high value. All mediaeval society 
luxuriated in fur, " as I believe for our damnation," said 
Adam of Bremen, ** since, per fas etnefasy we strive for 
a garment of martin, as though for our eternal salva- 
tion." Nor could the fashion have been otherwise, 
since furs in northern Europe were not only essential 
to comfort but to health itself. The climate was cold 
and damp, the streets of the towns narrow and dark, 
and the houses built without means of warming. 
Therefore furs played a part in indoor life foreign 
to all modem ideas. 

Suzdal, a province of central Russia, the predeces- 
sor of modern Moscow, was long overshadowed by 
Kiefl. To the Suzdalian, KiefiF represented all that 
was sacred and splendid, and the highest ambition of 
the Suzdalian prince, George Dolgoruki, was to ascend 
its throne. This ambition he finally gratified in 1 1 55. 
The rapidity of the movement of the age is shown 
by the divergence of view between two generations. 
What excited the father's reverence only roused the 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 63 

son's cupidity. When Andrew succeeded George, far 
from wishing to abandon the Volga for the Dnieper, 
his instinct was to plunder his father's sanctuary and 
carry the spoil home. Accordingly, in 1 169, Andrew 
attacked Kieil, and after a short siege carried the 
walls by storm. Then he gave the city up to sack, 
plundering not only private houses, but convents, 
churches, and even Saint Sophia itself. KiefiF never 
recovered, and Andrew, returning to Suzdal, estab- 
lished his administration at Vladimir on the Klyasma, 
midway between where Moscow and Nijni-Novgorod 
now stand. Vladimir remained the capital of the 
Grand Duchy until 1328, when Moscow gradually 
superseded her. In 1220 Nijni-Novgorod came into 
being, at the confluence of the Oka and the Volga, 
at the heart of the river system of which the Volga 
forms the trunk. 

Nothing could mark more pointedly the automatic 
processes of nature than the conversion of the 
ancient Greek Russia of the Dnieper into the modern 
Asiatic Russia of the Volga. In the year icxx), 
Constantinople being the dominant market, the regions 
tributary to that market were organized to correspond. 
Merchandise from Russia moved southward, and to 
avoid the navigation of the stormy Euxine, men used, 
when possible, the Dnieper instead of the Don. 
Novgorod served as the port of entry for the furs and 
amber of the Baltic, and also as the depot for furs 
from the valley of the Petchora, which reached the 
Volkhoff by the Volga and Rybinsk, the thorough- 
fare still in use. The wares collected at Novgorod 
were conveyed by the Lovat and the Dnieper to KiefF, 
where Greek merchants congregated to buy grain, 



64 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

and thus Kieil became the leading local market. 
But leading local markets are the natural seats of 
administrative systems. So it came to pass that 
Russia in the tenth century was administered from 
Kiefl; and the causes which made Kiefl a capital, 
kept it a capital until the direction of trade changed. 

Between looo and 1200 a.d. the development of 
German minerals, and the consequent industrial pros- 
perity of all northwestern Europe, propelled the seat 
of commercial exchanges toward the English Channel ; 
and when the market thus shifted, all civilization 
readjusted itself to conform to the change. As the 
purchasing power of Constantinople waned, and that 
of the Hanse towns waxed, the core of Russia, re- 
volving on Novgorod as on a pivot, passed through 
the segment of a circle, abandoning the thorough- 
fare of the Dnieper, which led north and south, and 
travelling to the valley of the Volga, which, with its 
branches, the Mologa and the Kama, forms an almost 
complete system of waterways from the Ural on the 
east, and the Petchora, which empties into the Arctic 
on the north, to the VolkhoflF on the west At Nov- 
gorod, on the Volkhoff, the Germans fixed their 
counting-house. 

As a consequence Kieff decayed, and with it the 
Greek civilization; while Moscow, Vladimir, Nijni, 
and Kazan rose, and with them came the Tartars. 
Meanwhile, German replaced Greek as the commercial 
language, German enterprise penetrated the recesses 
of Russia wherever trade promised a profit, and by 
I2C» the Novgorod merchants had extended their 
stations throughout the valley of the Petchora, and 
perhaps also the valley of the Obi. This was 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 65 

commercial expansion, and, as often happens, war fol- 
lowed. 

Christianity had previously been preached to < le 
heathen Slavs, but until the German merchants per- 
ceived the value of the basin of the Baltic, the Church 
had not been awakened to the necessity of armed 
conversion. Religious enthusiasm for conquest grew 
with the prosperity of Lubeck and Hamburg, and in 
1 198 Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade against 
northern Russia. Bishop Albert of Buxhoewden led 
his flock in twenty-three ships, and, entering the Diina, 
soon baptized the multitude and settled Riga, which 
quickly developed commercial importance and became 
the capital of Livonia. During the thirteenth cen- 
tury, two military crusading organizations, which 
were afterward fused under the name of the Knights 
of the Teutonic Order, conquered East Prussia and 
the region now known as the Baltic Provinces of 
Russia. They founded many towns, among others, 
Revel, Venden, once the residence of the Grand- 
Masters, Volmar, Marienburg, where the celebrated 
castle still stands, Konigsberg, and Thorn. In 13 10 
they acquired Dantzic. The Hanse held sway in 
Novgorod. 

When, during the eleventh century, trade, surmount- 
ing the Alps, flowed down the Rhine and the Elbe 
and across the northern seas, pirates on the water, 
and robbers in foreign lands, threatened the life of 
every traveller. To protect their citizens, some of 
the German ports early coalesced; and though this 
coalition did not earn the name of the Hanseatic 
League until a comparatively late date, the corpora- 
tion existed, probably, from the beginning. Had the 

F 



66 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

German trade routes converged, so as to give all 
Germany a community of interest, such a league 
could hardly have been evolved, for the purposes for 
which it was established could have been more 
cheaply accomplished by a centralized government, 
as in France or England. 

As German commerce flowed in two great streams 
to the Baltic and the North Sea, being split in twain 
by the peninsula of Denmark, the interests of the 
cities lying along these trade routes diverged, and in 
consequence the methods of administration remained 
rudimentary. The imperial government developed 
little energy, and the allied cities only acted together 
within a restricted sphere. They agreed to pursue 
pirates, to police the rivers as far as possible, and to 
support the rights of their citizens abroad, but for 
aggression they were helpless. To resist a powerful 
enemy, a separate treaty had to be made which might 
include other towns than those of the Hanse. Such 
a treaty, negotiated in 1367, organized the Cologne 
confederation which overthrew Waldemar of Den- 
mark, and it was after this war that the league 
reached its maturity. Imperfect as it was, the 
Hanse proved the most effective instrument Germany 
employed to extend her influence ; and it was through 
the energy and adroitness of her merchants, rather 
than through the arms of the crusaders, that 
mediaeval Germans colonized Russia. 

The League intrenched itself at Novgorod, and 
when all allowance has been made for hyperbole, 
Novgorod if semi-barbarous must have been both pop- 
ulous and wealthy. Gilbert of Lannoy, who visited 
Novgorod in 141 3, described it as a prodigious town, 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 67 

surrounded by forests, lying low and subject to 
inundations, and fortified with mean clay walls 
and stone towers. The merchants lived the lives 
of a garrison amidst savages. The guild brethren 
occupied large buildings, with separate rooms set 
apart for the use of the master, the servants, 
and the members. Saint Peter's church served 
as the main warehouse, goods being stored in its 
vaults. They also stacked wine casks about the 
altar, only on the altar itself nothing could be 
placed. Part of the duty of the guild members was 
to guard the church, day and night, particularly 
against fire. When supper ended, visitors left, the 
doors were locked, and all went to bed. At night 
the houses lay like fortresses, within strong wooden 
palings, to climb which was criminal ; while, to insure 
discipline, warders regularly made the rounds and 
fierce dogs roved in the yard. For such privations 
the merchants sought indemnity from the Russians. 
Russians were excluded from the company, and 
Russian commerce, therefore, vanished from the 
Baltic. 

To sustain prices in Russia, the Novgorod counter 
restricted imports ; and all Europe paid tribute to the 
Hanse for furs, and the wax from which the Church 
made her candles. 

Under such conditions Liibeck and Hamburg, 
serving as the outlet of the commerce both of the 
Elbe and of the Baltic, should seemingly have risen 
to be a chief international market ; and that they did 
not do so must be attributed to the physical confor- 
mation of Germany, which set her at a disadvantage. 

No error can be greater than to regard the barons. 



68 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

who held the castles on the roads, as public enemies, 
or even as the enemies of commerce. Without police, 
roads would be closed by robbers, and, in an age of 
decentralization, local castles protected travellers. 
The great work of the early Saxon emperors lay in 
the erection of strongholds along the line of the Elbe, 
to keep the Slavs in check. In fine, a guard must 
always be maintained and paid ; the only question is 
one of price, and the trouble with Germany was that 
her castles were too small and too numerous, and the 
tolls needed to support the garrisons too high. 

Thomas Wikes,in 1269, complained that "the mad 
Germans," perched on their inaccessible rocks above 
the Rhine, and restrained neither by fear, nor respect 
for the king, exacted intolerable dues from all passing 
vessels, by reason of which merchants were ruined. 
In the first fifteen miles above Hamburg on the Elbe 
there were no less than nine of these tolls. The 
total number between Hamburg and Vienna may be 
estimated. To reach Champagne, on the other hand, 
after leaving Switzerland, only the government of 
Burgundy had to be dealt with, which collected six 
toUs.^ Therefore, the route by Genoa and the St. 
Bernard, or by Marseilles and Lyons, to Paris, came 
cheaper than the Semmering or the Brenner and 
the Elbe to Hamburg, and accordingly the Fairs 
of Champagne undersold Liibeck. The sea, how- 
ever, cost less than any land journey, once the 
difficulties of navigation had been overcome, and by 
the middle of the twelfth century sailors had learned 
much. In 1 147 a fleet of two hundred Flemish ships 

^ On this subject see Etudes sur Us Foires de Champagne^ Felix 
Bourquelot, 320. 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 69 

reached Venice, which was perhaps the first time that 
a Flemish vessel had been seen in the Adriatic.^ 
Thenceforward the Italians always preferred the ocean 
when practicable. 

But, for ships bound from Venice, or Genoa, to the 
north of Europe, Hamburg and Liibeck were inac- 
cessible. In those days vessels were slow, and it 
would have been impossible to reach the Elbe and 
return the same year. Therefore, the Italian fleets 
stopped in Flanders. The Germans and Italians met 
in Bruges or Antwerp, and the Germans sent their 
purchases farther east, either in coasters or else by 
land, to Cologne, and so up the Rhine and the Main. 
As sea freights gained on land freights, the con- 
stant tendency was for the thoroughfares through 
the Alps to lose importance, and had it not been for 
mining, south Germany would have sunk into com- 
parative poverty at a relatively early period. Such 
facts seem to show that the inventive and industrial 
faculty which first brought German metals on the 
international market, and afterward threw central 
Europe into excentricity by substituting water for 
land transportation, kept western civilization in fer- 
ment from the opening of the crusades to the 
Reformation. Nevertheless, on the whole, Europe 
prospered. A catastrophe, induced by the same 
causes, fell on central Asia, under which it sank, 
never to revive. 

The ancient trade from China and India had 
converged at Balkh, and from thence had reached 

1 Lei Relations commerciales des Beiges avec le Nord de Plialie et 
parHculterement avec les Veneliens, debuts le XII jusqu^au XVI 
SiecUt Alexandre Pinchart, 11 etseq. 



70 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

the Mediterranean by Babylon, or by Tabriz and 
Trebizond. Consequently, commercial activity had 
centred in Persia and Mesopotamia, and these coun- 
tries had been the richest, the most populous, and 
the most polished in the world. No such cities 
could be found elsewhere as Samarkand, Bokhara, 
Merv, Herat, Bamian, Tabriz, Hamadan, Mosul, and 
Bagdad. When Haroun-al-Rashid lived, about 800, 
Bagdad was indisputably the first capital, and her 
caliph the chief monarch, of the earth. 

The change came with the introduction of the mag- 
net in navigation. From about the third century 
the Chinese appear to have sailed as far as the 
Persian Gulf, but the dangers of the Red Sea long 
protected Bagdad. Already in the age of Haroun this 
bulwark was failing. Those interested in the early 
voyages will find the authorities collected by Heyd 
in his work on the Commerce of the Levant^ but for 
ordinary readers the story of Sindbad the Sailor is 
equally convincing and more amusing. The tales of 
Sindbad are accurate descriptions of travel, with only 
enough exaggeration for popular consumption. To 
the east, Sindbad reached Malacca, to the south, 
probably, Madagascar. He made his last voyage to 
Ceylon, by the command of the caliph, as ambas- 
sador to the king of the island, and the noteworthy 
part of the tale is the small importance Haroun 
attached to the mission. In his sixth voyage Sindbad 
had been wrecked, and escaped by a subterranean 
river, carrying with him many jewels. On awakening 
on his raft he found himself in Ceylon, whose king sent 
him home with a letter and presents for the caliph* 
After his fatigues Sindbad proposed to remain in 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 71 

Bagdad for the rest of his life, but one day he received 
a message that the caliph wished to speak with him. 
On reaching the palace, Haroun announced his inten- 
tion of sending him to Ceylon with an answer to the 
king, and a return of presents. When Sindbad re- 
monstrated he observed: "It's only a question of 
going to Ceylon to acquit yourself of my commission. 
After that you can return.'* The difference between 
Haroun's standpoint and Alexander's explains all 
that followed. 

In ancient times, although navigation improved 
sufficiently to admit of voyages from India to Egypt, 
and Alexandria, accordingly, gained upon Babylon, 
ships never became powerful enough, and ocean 
freights cheap enough, to supersede the caravans of 
central Asia. The revolution came with the intro- 
duction of the magnetic needle, probably about the 
time of Sindbad, or a little later, and then events 
moved very rapidly. When a voyage to Ceylon from 
Bagdad counted for no more than it did in the mind 
of Haroun-al-Rashid, it evidently would no longer 
pay to make the Persian Gulf a stopping-point on 
the way to Egypt. Nor when Chinese junks could 
sail direct from Nanking or Canton to Aden, would it 
be profitable to send merchandise by camels across 
the Pamirs to Bactra, far less from Delhi or Lahore 
into the valley of the Oxus, as an avenue to a Medi- 
terranean market. Consequently the caravan, for 
through traffic, fell into disuse, and central Asia 
lapsed into excentricity. The inevitable result fol- 
lowed. Energy declined, and the Saracenic empire 
dissolved. 

According to Gibbon, the caliph El Rahdi, the 



72 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

twentieth of the Abbassides, "was the last who de- 
served the title of commander of the faithful. . . . 
After him the lords of the eastern world were reduced 
to the most abject misery, and exposed to the blows 
and insults of a servile condition." ^ Conversely, 
Egypt rose to almost incredible splendor and power, 
and became at once the centre of wealth, of refine- 
ment, and of learning. Her progress is marked in 
many ways. El Rahdi reigned from 934 to 940. 
Nicephorus Phocas, emperor of the East, came to the 
throne in 963 ; and Phocas and his successor, John 
Zimisces, taking advantage of the weakness of the 
Moslems, devastated the valley of the Orontes, and 
closed Syria as a thoroughfare. In 969 the first 
Fatimite caliph of Egypt laid the foundations of 
Cairo, in 11 76 Cairo was walled, and "from the year 
1 1 76 to our days Cairo has had no notable increase, 
if it be not the prolongation of the quarter El- 
Hasanyeh. In two centuries it acquired its actual 
limits.** * Moreover, Cairo's architectural splendor 
belongs to the interval between the decline of Bag- 
dad, which began in the ninth century, and the dis- 
covery of the sea route to India, in 1497. One of 
the earliest and most beautiful of her mosques, Tey- 
loun, " a model of elegance and grandeur," dates from 
876 A.D.,* sixty years before the final wreck in 
Mesopotamia after El Rahdi. Her noblest gate, the 
Bab-el-Nasr, is a work of the eleventh century. 
The Gama-el-Azhar, destined to be the greatest of 
universities, and finished in 972, is said, in its prime, 
to have sheltered twelve thousand students who daily 

^ Decline and Fall, Chap. LII. 

* VArt Arabet Prisse d'Avennes, 74. * IHd.^ 94. 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 73 

received instruction in medicine, theology, philos- 
ophy, mathematics, geography, and history. In 1359 
the Sultan Hassan completed his famous mosque, 
costing $3,cxx),cxx), equivalent to more than ten times 
that sum in our money, and which ranks among the 
masterpieces of the world. 

The Egyptian court was most gorgeous, the Egyp- 
tian empire largest, and Egypt's fame highest under 
Saladin, who defeated Philip Augustus and Coeur de 
Lion in Palestine, and who will always remain an 
heroic figure in history. From these facts the in- 
ference is justified that, toward the year 1200, the old 
economic system, which had been based on the 
caravan routes across central Asia, had been super- 
seded by the modem system, which is based upon 
the sea. The track commerce followed was sim- 
plified. Starting from the Chinese and Indian 
ports and the spice islands, cargoes were often con- 
signed to Aden, where they changed hands, and, 
crossing the Red Sea and Egypt to the Nile, were 
floated to Cairo and Alexandria, where they were 
sold to Europeans. At the mouth of the Nile the 
stream branched to Venice, Genoa, and Marseilles, 
the Venetian section being, probably, the most con- 
siderable. The Venetian traffic also was, in the main, 
that which emerged at the mouths of the Elbe and 
the Rhine. In the North Sea and the Baltic another 
maritime system prevailed, controlled by the Hanseatic 
League. This system struck its roots into Russia at 
Novgorod, and stretched out to Sweden on the north, 
the Urals and the Arctic on the east, and to London 
on the west, its base being Liibeck, Hamburg, Co- 
logne, and Bruges. Thus it would appear that the 



74 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

old and new economic systems were divided from 
each other by a sharp line of demarkation. The 
ancient system comprised the interior of China, the 
whole of central Asia and northern India, Syria, and 
most of Europe east of the Adriatic; the new, all of 
Africa and Europe west of a line drawn from Aden 
to Suez, and thence to Venice through the Adriatic. 
From Venice the frontier followed the trade route 
north to Vienna, Prague, and the Elbe, until it reached 
East Prussia, where, turning east, it ended with Nov- 
gorod. In fine, as far as the Western Empire ex- 
tended, this division almost coincided with its boun- 
dary save in regard to Eg^pt ; and the cause which 
produced the division led to the Mongol invasion. 

Wherever commercial exchanges centre, movement 
is rapid, because men's minds are highly stimulated ; 
when a region falls into excentricity, the stimulant 
is reduced, and proportionate languor supervenes. 
This law seems to be universal. Therefore commu- 
nities which have been abandoned by their trade 
routes, though often retaining wealth for long periods 
if undisturbed, lose their energy, and offer temp- 
tations to pillage. Such was the case with Rome, 
and such was the fate of this unfortunate region 
which had been discarded between the eleventh and 
the thirteenth centuries. Constantinople fell first. 

In 1 198 Innocent III. preached a crusade against 
the Saracens, and the Byzantine Empire had then 
been languishing for upwards of a century. If the 
fortification of the Harz by Henry the Fowler be 
taken as the point of departure, all these events fall 
into a regular sequence. In 924 Henry built his first 
tower at Quedlinburg. In another generation the 



fl. THE NEW EMPlRfi ^5 

mines had come into operation, and before the close 
of the century western Europe had responded to the 
impetus. The effect had been the diversion of trade 
from the Bosphorus to the Adriatic, and Venice had 
prospered while Constantinople had declined. In the 
Byzantine Empire all went ill. Disorder prevailed, 
and in 1 08 1 Alexius Comnenus, having bribed a body 
of Germans to open a gate, entered the capital with a 
body of ruffians, and pillaged as though in a hostile 
land. Proclaimed emperor, he dared not fight Robert 
Guiscard with his own navy, but abandoned the 
defence of Durazzo to the Venetians. Thencefor- 
ward the administration degenerated apace, trade fell 
off, the coinage deteriorated, and, when Innocent's 
crusaders met at Venice, in 1202, to take ship for the 
Holy Land, Constantinople offered the fairest prize 
to the spoiler that had been known since Alaric took 
Rome. Henry Dandolo, the greatest of Venetian 
statesmen, saw his opportunity. He held the crusaders 
in his power, for they owed the Republic for transpor- 
tation sums they could not pay. Dandolo proposed to 
them to aid him to sack Constantinople, to divide the 
proceeds, and thus meet their obligations, suggesting 
that afterward enough would remain to enrich them 
aU. 

The event proved Dandolo's sagacity. On April 
12, 1204, the soldiers of Christ carried the tremen- 
dous battlements of Byzantium, which had been 
deemed impregnable, and slaughtered, almost without 
loss, a garrison outnumbering them about five to one. 
The sack which followed has lived in human memory, 
even amid the multitude of such awful tales. Neither 
age nor sex escaped Nothing was so sacred as to 



76 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

command immunity, and the ecclesiastics who accom- 
panied the army found an incalculable treasure in the 
relics with which the convents and churches were 
filled. The prices these fetched in the mediaeval 
market may be estimated by the sum paid for the 
Crown of Thorns by Saint Louis, which could not 
have been far from a million of our money. 

Mark that Constantinople stood just to the east of 
the line which separated the old from the new eco- 
nomic systems, and consider the success of Dandolo; 
then turn to Cairo, which lay as far to the west, and 
ponder the fate of those who attempted a similar raid. 
In 1249, forty-five years later, Saint Louis, at the 
head of the finest force ever organized in Europe, 
landed in Egypt and advanced to Mansurah; there, 
meeting a decisive defeat, on April 5, 1250, he and 
his army surrendered. Instead of bringing home in- 
finite wealth, he exhausted France in furnishing a 
ransom. 

Doubtless, Europeans won sporadic successes 
during the crusades ; but, notwithstanding these, they 
never, like the Greeks under Alexander, penetrated 
the recesses of Asia. The destruction of the ancient 
civilization of the interior was reserved for hordes of 
nomadic barbarians. The Mongols had been deemed 
by their civilized neighbors to be "among the most 
wretched of mankind, wandering in an elevated region 
of Tartary, and under an inclement sky, and so poor 
that Rashid tells us only their chiefs had iron stir- 
rups." ^ There is nothing to show that thirteenth cen- 
tury Mongols differed materially from their ancestors. 
True, they produced a great soldier, but the greatest 

^ History of the Mongols^ Howorth, I., io8. 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 'j'j 

of soldiers is naught without an opportunity ; and the 
opportunity of Jenghiz Khan came to him, not from 
his own strength, but from the weakness of his victim. 
The fact seems established that the Mongols seldom 
or never prevailed against a united and determined 
foe; their successes were won against organisms 
resembling the Byzantine Empire, and their victories 
recall the sack of Constantinople. 

Probably in the year 1162, on the banks of the 
river Onon, which rises to the east of Lake Baikal, 
and which finally merges in the Amur, a certain 
Mongol chief had born to him a boy whom he named 
Temudjin, after a Tartar khan, whom he had defeated. 
Temudjin was but thirteen when his father died, and 
that he survived is evidence of his adaptation to his 
surroundings. At one time he sank to the depth of 
misery, was captured, tortured, escaped, was recap- 
tured, and only saved from death by the pity of his 
pursuer, who hid him in his house. For many years 
Temudjin waged war upon his neighbors, nor was it 
until the year 1206, that, having destroyed his rivals, 
he assumed the title of Jenghiz Khan, or "Very 
Mighty Khan." 

At this time China was divided into two empires, 
a southern with a capital at Hangchow, and a north- 
em, ruled by the Kin emperors, who resided near Pe- 
king. In 1209 the Ban emperor sent to Jenghiz Khan 
to collect the regular tribute, but Jenghiz, relying on 
rumors of disaffection which came to him through 
refugees, scornfully told the envoy that the "Son of 
Heaven" was an imbecile, and, mounting his horse, 
rode off. War followed, and Jenghiz obtained his 
first success through the treachery of the garrison of 



78 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

the great wall, who deserted. At a favorable point 
the Kin generals awaited him with a vast army, but 
Jenghiz learned their plans from the cx)mmander of 
their advance guard, who went over to him, and 
found means to crush one of their divisions. Then 
the Chinese fell back, the fortress which covered the 
capital was abandoned in panic, and the Mongols took 
the town. In August, 12 12, Jenghiz besieged Tai- 
ton-f u, but meeting with a stout resistance he retired 
into the desert. 

In these campaigns the Mongols could have accom- 
plished little without the aid of the Chinese them- 
selves, for the Mongols were not engineers, and reUed 
on deserters to conduct their siege operations. But 
China was rotten to the core. In 121 3 the Kin 
dynasty collapsed. A certain general named Hushaku 
conspired against the emperor, murdered him, and 
raised a creature of his own to the throne. He then 
defeated the Mongols, but, being wounded, a rival 
cut off his head and sent it as a present to the new 
potentate, who rewarded the mutineer by making 
him commander-in-chief. Yet China, broken as it 
was, fought valiantly compared to central Asia. In 
12 1 7 Jenghiz reached Kashgar, his dominions then 
becoming coterminous with those of Mohammed 
the Khuarezm Shah, whose empire stretched from 
the Pamirs to Mesopotamia, and from the Indus 
to the Aral. Soon a quarrel broke out. Certain 
agents of Jenghiz, nominally employed in purchasing 
for him, were arrested and executed as spies at 
Otrar. Receiving no satisfaction, Jenghiz, in 1218, 
marched from Karakorum in two columns. The 
southern, moving by the Terek Pass and Usch, encoun- 



II. THE NEW EMPIRE 79 

tered Mohammed's forces, ill disciplined and disorgan- 
ized. Mohammed himself, a debauched poltroon, fled 
to Samarkand. 

The northern column, following the valley of the 
Irtysh and Lake Balkash, attacked Otrar. In April, 
1 2 19, the garrison, being somewhat pressed, deserted. 
Otrar taken, Jenghiz overran the valley of the Syr-Daria 
and marched on Bokhara, one of the magnificent and 
cultivated cities of Asia. Garrisoned by 20,000 men, 
it was surrounded by two walls, one about four miles in 
circumference, the other nearly fifty, the interval be- 
tween the two being filled with palaces, parks, and 
gardens, and traversed by the river Sogd. In a few 
days the troops in Bokhara fled, but were cut to pieces, 
and then the chief men surrendered. Jenghiz ad- 
dressed the people, saying : " I am the scourge of God. 
If you were not great criminals, God would not have per- 
mitted me to have thus punished you." The inhabit- 
ants were then driven from the gates, that the pillage 
might be the easier, and the Mongols burned the 
town. "It was a fearful day. One only heard the 
sobs and weeping of men, women, and children, who 
were separated forever ; women were ravished while 
many men died rather than survive the dishonor of 
their wives and daughters.*' ^ Von Hammer has 
compared the accounts of the sack of Bokhara given 
by the Moslems, with those given by the Greeks of 
the sack of Constantinople. Samarkand fell next. 
Samarkand was not only the capital of Trans-Oxania, 
but an opulent market. Its garrison consisted of 
110,000 Turkomans and Persians. The Turks at 
once deserted. Then the town surrendered. Besides 

1 History of the Mongols^ I., 78. 



80 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

plundering the place, 60,000 citizens were reduced 
to slavery. The troops were massacred. Next the 
Mongols fell upon Khorasan, the garden of Asia. 
Merv, the " king of the world," and extremely- 
ancient, was rich and populous. The governor, after 
a couple of sorties, decided to surrender. Tempted 
by promises, he visited the Mongol camp with 
his relations and friends, when all were massacred. 
The Mongols entered the gates, and the inhabit- 
ants were made to march out with their treasures. 
The procession lasted four days. The Mongol prince, 
raised on a golden throne in the midst of the plain, 
caused the chiefs to be decapitated as«a spectacle. 
Then a general massacre ensued. It is said that 
" Seyid Yzz-ud-din, a man renowned for his virtues 
and piety, assisted by many people, was thirteen days 
in counting the corpses, which numbered 1,300,000." ^ 
The ferocity of the invaders can be judged by their 
slaughter of 5000 victims who had hidden in holes 
and comers and afterward came out for food. 

Nishapur fell in April, 1221, two months after the 
death of Sultan Mohammed. In two days the walls 
were breached. The carnage lasted four days. To 
prevent the living hiding beneath the dead, Tului, the 
Mongol general, ordered all the heads to be cut off, and 
separate heaps made of those of the men, women, and 
children. Only 400 artisans escaped, who were trans- 
ported into the north. Years afterward the Sultan 
Jel41-ud-dtn farmed out the right to seek for treasure 
in the ruins of Nishapur for 30,000 dinars a year. 
Sometimes as much was found in a single day. 

Herat surrendered, afterward rebelled, and was 

1 History of the Mongols^ I., 87. 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 8 1 

captured because of dissensions among its garrison. 
For a whole week the Mongols ceased not to kill and 
burn, and i,6oo,ocx) people are said to have perished; 
the place was depopulated and made desert. The 
Mongols then retired. Soon after they returned to 
destroy any of the inhabitants who yet lived. They 
slaughtered over 2,000. When the scourge ended, 
"forty persons assembled in the great mosque — the 
miserable remnants of its once teeming population." ^ 

Balkh, Bamian, every town of importance in cen- 
tral Asia, shared in the ruin. All men knew the fate 
awaiting the conquered, and yet all historians have 
remarked on " the miserable decrepitude of the oppo- 
nents of the Mongols," and have cited astonishing 
examples. "A Mongol entered a populous village, 
and proceeded to kill the inhabitants one after 
another, without any one raising a hand. Another, 
wishing to kill a man, and having no weapon by 
him, told him to lie down while he went for a 
sword; with this he returned and killed the man, 
who in the meantime had not moved. An officer 
with twenty-seven men met a Mongol, who was 
insolent, he ordered them to kill him; they said 
they were too few, and he actually had to kill him 
himself ; having done which all immediately fled." ^ 

Inertia invariably accompanies a slackening in the 
velocity of social movement. This inertia was con- 
spicuous throughout the whole zone of the Mongol 
conquests, which comprised the entire ancient eco- 
nomic system. It is true that Jenghiz himself did not 
erect a principality in the valley of the Indus, but 
Tamerlane some generations later laid, at Delhi, the 

1 History of the Mongols, I., 91. ^ Md^ I., 131, 132. 

G 



82 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

foundations of the empire of the Great Mogul Jen- 
ghiz and his immediate successors expended their 
energy in the north. In Asia Minor they swept 
through the Van country; in Syria they pillaged 
Antioch, and occupied Damascus; in Mesopotamia 
they slew, according to report, 800,000 people in 
Bagdad alone. 

In 1237 the Mongols assailed Russia. At Ryazan 
the prisoners were impaled, or shot with arrows for 
sport, or flayed alive. Priests were roasted, "and 
nuns and maidens ravished in the churches before 
their relatives." Invading Suzdal, they immolated 
Moscow and Vladimir and many other cities. At 
ICieff the fugitives collected in the cathedral, where 
numbers ascended to the roof, carrying with them 
their wealth. The roof, being flat, gave way, when 
the Mongols, rushing in among the ruins, slaughtered 
without mercy; "the very bones were torn from the 
tombs and trampled under the horses' hoofs.** ^ 

Advancing into Poland, the Mongols crossed the 
Oder, and, on April 9, 1241, fought a famous 
battle at Liegnitz, about one-third of the way be- 
tween Breslau and Dresden. Outnumbering the 
Christians nearly five to one, they defeated them, 
but at such a cost that they turned south and en- 
tered Hungary. Several noble Silesian and Moravian 
families still bear the Mongol cap as a memento 
of their ancestors' prowess in this action. In Hun- 
gary the Mongols met with slight opposition, as 
"the Hungarian nation was disintegrated and dis- 
satisfied." ^ Therefore Batu forced the line of the 
Vistula and the Danube, as he had forced the line 

1 History of the Mongols^ Howorth, I., 141. * Jbid,^ I., 147. 



n. THE NEW EMPIRE 83 

of the Dnieper and the Lovat. The story of the 
invasion is like the story of the conquest of China 
and of Persia. Cracow had been previously burned, 
and Batu marched direct from Russia on Buda. 
The enemies met on the heath of Mohi, near Tokay. 
Batu attacked at night the Hungarian army, which 
would no longer obey its leaders. The Templars, 
indeed, fought as beseemed their order and their 
fame, but the Huns, as a body, first refused to leave 
their camp, and then fled. Their pursuers strewed 
with their corpses a space of two days* journey. 
Sixty-five thousand men are believed to have fallen. 

On December 25, 1241, Batu crossed the Danube 
on the ice, to storm the rich city of Gran. He en- 
countered little resistance from the inhabitants, many 
of whom he roasted to discover hidden treasure. He 
then tried the citadel, but the citadel was held, not by 
a Hun, but by a sturdy Spaniard, and Batu suffered 
a defeat. Nor did the Duke of Austria fail to raise 
an army with which he made good Vienna. As 
usual, when they encountered a serious obstacle, the 
Mongols moved in a direction where the resistance 
would be less, and turning south from Austria, they 
marched along the eastern coast of the Adriatic to 
Scutari. There they stopped. 

Thus the limits of the barbarian inroads are well 
defined. Starting from near Pekin, they followed the 
caravan routes to Kashgar, and thence across the 
Terek Pass to Uschj Khokam, Samarkand, and Bactra. 
There, still following the highways, they branched. 
One division crossed the Hindu Kush by the Pass of 
Bamian, and erected the empire of Delhi ; another, 
marching along the highway of Semiramis, sacked 



84 THE NEW EMHRE CHAP. 

Bagdad; still another, using the thoroughfare by 
Tabriz and Lake Van, attacked Mosul, Aleppo, and 
Damascus. Advancing into Russia they ascended 
the Volga to Vladimir, and descended the Dnieper 
to Kieff. They devastated Poland and Hungary, 
and swept bare the valleys of the Vistula and the 
lower Danube ; but when they overstepped the boun- 
dary between the old economic system and the new, 
their triumphs ended. Egypt defied them. Ger- 
many, both north and south, repulsed them, and they 
recoiled from before the walls of Novgorod. The 
cleavage was the same as that which, eight hundred 
years earlier, split the domain of Rome into an East- 
em and a Western empire, and for the same reason. 

Nature is consistent The fit survive, the dis- 
carded perish. As the destruction of Rome, in one 
age, supervened because a martial race could not de- 
velop into mechanics and explorers, so, in another 
age, the annihilation of what had been the eastern 
supplement to Rome followed upon the propagation 
of more versatile competitors in the west, who revo- 
lutionized exchanges and altered the paths of trade. 

Rome decayed and fell, because she could neither 
provide other commodities than metal to barter with 
the East, nor improve her metallurgy and discover 
fresh mines. The men of the Middle Ages, bred to 
fit the emergency, not only supplied what the Latins 
lacked, but cheapened navigation, until ships sup- 
planted the caravan, and central Asia lost the inter- 
national eastern traffic. Then the eastern half of the 
ancient economic system sickened and died of in- 
anition, even as the western half had already died ; 
and sorry bands of barbarians wandered through the 



11. THE NEW EMPIRE 8$ 

Persian gardens, as the Goths and Vandals had wan- 
dered through Italy and Gaul. Caesar's legions would 
have scattered the rabble of Genseric like chaff, had 
Caesar's legions lived in the fifth century; and the 
hordes of Jenghiz would have fared hardly on the 
plains of Mesopotamia, had they met there warriors 
such as Saladin. Yet none can avert their fate; 
Egyptian splendor and Egyptian prowess survived 
not the discovery of Vasco da Gama. In 15 17 the 
Turks stormed Cairo, and Egypt degenerated into an 
Ottoman province. 



CHAPTER III 

Prosperity has always borne within itself the 
seeds of its own decay. Piloti remarked that the 
master of Cairo was master both of Christendom 
and India, because Cairo commanded the road from 
the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The French 
understood the situation in the thirteenth century, 
and Saint Louis led the crusade of 1248, not only with 
the view of recovering Jerusalem, but also in the 
hope, by conquering the Sultan of Egypt, of obtain- 
ing the key to the Orient. His defeat left the West 
helpless, and the Arabs profited by their advantage. 
They taxed the traffic crossing to Alexandria, up to 
the limit at which spices could be delivered at Con- 
stantinople or Beyrout by caravan from Samarkand 
or Bagdad. Rapacity produced its inevitable eflFect. 
The most ingenious and enterprising race which had 
ever been developed was stimulated to elude the 
enemy whom they could not vanquish. The result 
was the discovery of America by Columbus, in 1492, 
and of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope by 
Vasco da Gama, in 1497. Thereafter in a single 
decade a disturbance of the social equilibrium oc- 
curred, greater, probably, than had ever before taken 
place in many centuries. 

From time immemorial eastern merchandise had 
entered the Mediterranean by the Levant, and from 
thence had percolated through Europe, enriching the 

S6 



CHAP. in. THE NEW EMPIRE 8/ 

cities on the avenues leading toward the Atlantic. 
In one age it had been Corinth and Syracuse; in 
another, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome ; in a third, 
Venice, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Lubeck; or 
Genoa, Lyons, and Paris; but at the beginning of 
the fifteenth century this order abruptly closed, and 
commerce, avoiding the Mediterranean altogether, 
passed directly toward the North Sea through the 
ocean. 

On the northwest and southwest the British Islands 
and Spain jut out into the Atlantic from the conti- 
nent like two promontories. When the eastern trade 
moved to the Atlantic, the effect was to transfer the 
competition, which theretofore had gone on between 
river systems, into a struggle between Spain, Eng- 
land, and France, who alone had ports which could 
be utilized as centres of exchanges for ocean traffic. 

The intensity of the struggle for supremacy was 
heightened during the sixteenth century by a finan- 
cial crisis of the first magnitude. Europe's vulner- 
able point has always been her metals. Rome fell 
because the Spanish mines proved inadequate to meet 
the demands upon them, and at the time of the dis- 
covery of America a similar catastrophe threatened 
the civilization of the Middle Ages. Though popula- 
tion, industry, and trade had all increased since the 
reign of Saint Louis, the yield of the precious metals 
had, probably, not augmented, even if it remained 
constant; therefore, relatively to commodities, the 
value of money rose, and debtors suffered corre- 
spondingly. 

Long ago Thorold Rogers pointed out " the signifi- 
cant decline in prices " which took place in England 



88 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

between 146 1 and 1540.^ In reality the decline began 
earlier, and extended throughout Europe. 

The French manufacturing towns which, at the 
close of the twelfth century, built cathedrals such as 
Chartres, Amiens, and Rheims, toward the year 1260 
fell into insolvency.^ Louis IX. had coined the mark 
of silver into 2 pounds, 15 sous, and 6 pence. Under 
Philip the Fair, in 1306, the same weight sufficed for 
8 pounds, 10 sous. In England, at the close of the 
thirteenth century, the penny weighed 22J grains of 
standard silver; in 1546, the penny contained but 
10 grains of metal, two-thirds of which were base. 
And yet values, if anything, tended downward. 
Thorold Rogers marvelled. He could not explain 
why, with such a debasement, the bushel of grain 
should have cost as much during the first forty years 
of the sixteenth century as during the last fourteen 
of the thirteenth.^ 

Silver bought more because scarcer, and this scarc- 
ity may be attributed both to an increased demand 
for money without a proportionate supply of bullion, 
and also to a larger export of gold and silver to the East. 

As long as the caravan trade nourished central 
Asia, the Persians and other neighboring commu- 
nities bought liberally of woollens, because of the 
severity of the winter climate. After the devasta- 
tions of the Mongols the people being poorer bought 
less. Jenkinson, in 1559, could barter no English 
cloth of any kind in Bokhara.* Egypt purchaised 

1 Agriculture and Prices, IV., 454. 
^ Les Communes Fran^aises, Luchaire, 200, 201. 
■ Agriculture and Prices, IV., 200, 292. 

* Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia, by Anthony 
Jenkinson, Publications of Hakluyt Soc, I., 88. 



in. THE NEW EMPIRE 89 

iron, copper, and tin, besides timber and slaves, but 
India and China took few commodities from the West, 
and, on the whole, Europe had to face a heavy ad- 
verse trade balance, which she settled with cash. 
Heyd has estimated the annual export of the precious 
metals, in 1497, at 300,000 ducats. The Venetian 
ducat contained 3.559 grammes of gold, or about the 
weight of <>2.i3; the equivalent of 300,000 such 
ducats to-day might be <l 7, 500,000. 

Everywhere the suffering was acute, and every- 
where it broke out in discontent, chiefly against the 
Church; a discontent which can be understood in 
view of the weight of her exactions.^ A document of 
the sixteenth century has estimated that, in 1415, 
at the time of the Council of Constance, France sent 
annually to Rome 900,000 crowns to pay for annats, 
bulls, dispensations, and the like, which vast sum con- 
tributed nothing toward the maintenance of worship 
in the kingdom. The English parliament passed a 
series of statutes to obtain relief ; in short, all Christen- 
dom, even Spain, betrayed symptoms of resistance. 
It was just at the moment of crisis that the Spanish 
struggle for predominance opened. That struggle 
began with the election of Charles V. as emperor of 
Germany in 15 19, the year in which Luther denied 
the Papal supremacy, and closed with the defeat of 
the Armada in 1588 ; a period of almost precisely two 
generations. During the interval Cortez conquered 
Mexico and Peru, the mines of Potosi were discovered, 
a flood of silver poured across the ocean, and in 1561 
Elizabeth restored the shilling to its original fineness. 

^ For the economic aspect of the Reformation see the chapter on 
The English Reformation in The Law of Civilization and Decay, 



90 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Nevertheless relief came too late. In 1588 the wars 
of the Reformation were raging, both France and 
Spain had repudiated, the Netherlands had been 
driven to revolt, Antwerp had been sacked, and on 
the ruin of the economic system of the continent 
England was preparing to lay the foundations of her 
empire. 

The rise of Spain must always appear marvellous. 
Castile and Aragon only united in 1479, the Moors 
were not expelled until Granada fell in 1492, the year 
in which Columbus reached Hispaniola, and yet in 
1520 Spain touched her zenith. And when the evi- 
dence is analyzed, it will be found that she owed her 
high fortune not so much to the valor of her soldiers 
or the wisdom of her statesmen, as to that chain of 
cause and effect which for a fleeting moment made 
the Iberian peninsula a centre of commercial ex- 
changes between America, Europe, and Asia. 

On July 10, 1499, the first ship of Vasco's fleet re- 
turned. On that day Venice held control of the eastern 
trade, and was the chief commercial state of Europe. 
In 1 502 the Venetian galleys brought but four bales 
of pepper from Beyrout, and from Alexandria little 
more. In a few months, between 1501 and 1502, the 
price of a cargo of pepper advanced from 75 to 100 
ducats on the Rialto, and Venice stood face to face 
with ruin.^ On the other hand, Lisbon rose to emi- 
nence, and the German merchants, who had been the 
fountain of Venetian prosperity, left their Fondaco, 
and hurried westward to Portugal, where spices could 
be bought for half the price they brought upon the 
Adriatic. In September, 1503, Vasco da Gama re- 

^Histoire du Commerce du Levant^ Heyd, 2, 519. 



III. THE NEW EMPIRE 9I 

turned from his third voyage with a rich cargo, part 
of which had been bought with the proceeds of a prize 
worth 24,ocx) ducats, or possibly <l5 50,000 of our 
money. The value of the whole consignment touched 
1,000,000 ducats, while the cost of the expedition had 
not exceeded 200,000. It was then the great fall took 
place in pepper, for the cantar, which had previously 
cost 40 ducats, could afterward be had for 20. And 
yet the Portuguese made liberal profits, for the spice 
they sold in Lisbon for 20 ducats they bought in India 
for two or three. In 1 509, precisely a decade after Da 
Gama's return from Calicut, the Portuguese admiral 
defeated the Egyptian fleet in the Arabian Sea, estab- 
lished a fortification in the island of Sokotra, and 
closed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to the eastern 
trade. Thus Venice was cut off. 

What ruined Venice made Antwerp. From the 
middle of the fourteenth century, when the British 
moved the woollen trade from Bruges, Antwerp 
gained, but it only reached its bloom after the cen- 
tralization of the eastern import trade at Lisbon 
permitted capitalists to concentrate sales in Flanders. 
The great houses bought cargoes of spices afloat from 
the Portuguese government, sent them to the Scheldt, 
and, by combination among themselves, usually suc- 
ceeded in regulating prices, from year to year, well 
enough to avoid violent fluctuations. Then Antwerp 
became not only the chief port of Europe, and the 
dominant market for merchandise, but the clearing- 
house for the world. All governments which needed 
money looked to Antwerp ; Thomas Gresham, Eliza- 
beth's financial agent, tarried there. Evidently such 
a sudden and considerable increase of the trade to 



92 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

tropical countries, and the elimination of all the tem- 
perate regions of Asia, greatly stimulated the export 
of specie, and for fully half a century the yield of 
Mexico imperfectly balanced this loss. Charles abdi- 
cated in 1555. In 1550, five years after the discovery 
of the mines at Potosi, he was estimated to have re- 
ceived annually only 400,000 ducats from America. 
Not before 1570 did the Spanish fleets bring very 
great treasures to Cadiz. Also this date is suggestive, 
for Drake sailed on his buccaneering expedition to 
Panama in 1572. 

Charles I. of Spain, who afterward was chosen 
emperor, owed his election, and most of his other 
successes in life, to the credit he enjoyed as Count 
of Holland, or head of the first financial state in 
Christendom. This credit won for him his first suc- 
cess over his rival, Francis I. of France, and enabled 
him to continue his wars long after Spain, had she 
stood alone, would have been bankrupt. 

" The choice of Charles of Spain to be King of the 
Romans is without question the event of the period 
which has brought out most clearly the power of 
money at that time. It is an event which alone 
suffices to justify the title, * The Age of the Fuggers.' 
Never would the German electors have chosen 
Charles had not the Fuggers intervened for him with 
their cash, and especially with their overpowering 
credit." ^ 

Charles was the child of Philip the Fair, Archduke 
of Austria, and Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand 
and Isabella. The son of a German, born in Ghent 
in 1500, he lived in the Netherlands until he inherited 

* Das ZHtaUer der Fi4gger, Ehrenberg, I., loa 



m. THE NEW EMPIRE 93 

the crown of his grandfather Ferdinand in 15 16, and 
was Spanish only by half-blood, and not at all by 
training. He first visited Spain in 15 17, and found 
Madrid uncongenial. He was, indeed, the product of 
the most commercial atmosphere in the world. His 
affiliations with the leading bankers were close. They 
trusted him, as they never did his son, and they bought 
for him the imperial crown. They supported him in 
his schemes of conquest, and when he admitted failure 
by abdication, the great financial houses were totter- 
ing to their fall. 

They fell in an effort to consolidate antagonistic 
economic systems. The valley of the Rhine is 
divided from the valley of the Rhone by the ranges 
of the Jura and the Vosges. In Champagne, on the 
flanks of the Vosges, rises the Meuse, which flows 
north to Namur, where it unites with the Sambre, 
and then easterly until it joins a branch of the Rhine 
above Dordrecht. To the north the hills sink into 
the plain, and, on the confines of Flanders, the 
watershed is almost imperceptible, so much so that 
the district in which the Scheldt, the Sambre, and 
the Oise rise was once probably a marsh. Yet this 
watershed, inconsiderable though it be, has always 
determined the direction of trade, and by so doing 
has fixed the frontier of France. At the beginning 
of the thirteenth century, Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, 
lying within the narrow province between the Scheldt 
and the sea, were the three most important cities be- 
yond the Alps and are supposed to have contained 
from i50,ocx) to 200,ocx) inhabitants each. Their 
main industry was weaving English wool, and they 
sold their cloth over all Christendom, Egypt, and 



94 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

central Asia, the chief brokers being the Italians. 
The commercial interests of Flanders, therefore, did 
not harmonize with the interests of the region cen- 
tralized at Paris, though possibly most of the merchan- 
dise shipped south passed through Paris because of 
the flow of the rivers. This trade-route made the 
Fairs of Champagne. 

From the Mediterranean, the Rhone, Sa6ne, and 
Ouche lead to Dijon ; or, if the road be taken from 
Genoa, across the St. Bernard, it also ends at Dijon. 
Dijon, in the valley of the Rhone, is about one 
hundred miles distant from Troyes, in the valley of 
the Seine, and Troyes and Bar-sur-Aube, close by, 
are the southernmost of the four towns at which the 
famous Fairs were held. The other two were Provins 
and Lagny-sur-Mame. All these towns are in the 
valley of the Seine above Paris ; and just below Paris 
the Oise ofifered a waterway leading northeast as far 
as Chauny, about twenty-five miles from St. Quen- 
tin. The interval between the Oise, the Sambre, and 
the Scheldt is now traversed by canals, but in the 
Middle Ages portages had to be made, and it was 
because St. Quentin stood on the Somme, between 
the Oise, the Scheldt, and the Sambre, that it early 
achieved fortune. St. Quentin was the first French 
town to receive a communal charter. Ghent lies 
a little less than one hundred miles from St 
Quentin, down the Scheldt, and Ghent was the 
capital of Flanders, the heart of the manufacturing 
region which bought its raw material in England, 
and sold the chief of its product to Lombards.^ On 

1 That Flemish trade did actually pass into France by the Scheldt is 
demonstrated by the position of Bapaume, the most noted custom-house 



m. THE NEW EMPIRE 95 

this combination of trade-routes the social and polit- 
ical equilibrium of western Europe reposed down to 
the accession of Philip the Fair in France in 1285. 

When Philip came to the throne, France was cen- 
tralizing rapidly. By the marriage of Philip with 
Jane of Navarre, the heiress of the Count of Cham- 
pagne, Champagne became absorbed in the kingdom, 
and then forthwith the organism, of which Philip was 
the head, stretched out along the highways leading 
to the east, in the effort to reduce under one admin- 
istration all the region between the Scheldt and the 
ocean, which used the Scheldt as an avenue to the 
Fairs. 

Flanders, though a fief of the French crown, was, 
in reality, an independent state, enacting laws, coining 
money, administering justice, and making war and 
peace without reference to her feudal superior. 
When Philip began his reign, Guy of Dampierre 
was Count of Flanders, and it was not long before 

of the kingdom, which ''was the point of transit of the merchandise 
exchanged between the north and south of all western Europe." 
(£tude Historique sur les relations commerciaUs etUrt la France et la 
Flandre au Moyen Age, Jules Finot, 68.) 

Cambrai stood on the Scheldt just beyond the French border, 
and Bapaume is nearly midway between Cambrai and St Quentin, 
only somewhat to the west of both. The ancient road seems here to 
have diverged from the direct line because of the dangers of the forest 
of Arrouaise, which extended from Albert to the Sambre. (/^tV/., i, 2.) 
The main highway, from Arras to Rheims, passed through Bapaume 
and St. Quentin. Therefore when the merchant from Flanders, 
travelling to the Fairs of Champagne, arrived at Bapaume, he chose 
his route south, according to circumstances. He might go, for the 
most part, by boat, or he might go by pack-train, but as even in the 
eighteenth century the cost of travel by road was estimated at tenfold 
that of travel by canal or river, it is fair to conclude that he ordinarily 
preferred the Oise and Seine. 



96 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

matters came to a crisis between him and the king. 
The fiscal agents of France spread themselves over 
Flanders, practically setting aside the local adminis- 
tration. As Philip's historian has observed : " Gui de 
Dampierre thus witnessed the progressive and increas- 
ingly rapid invasion of the county of Flanders by 
the authority and influence of the crown of France. 
Flanders was enveloped in its turn in the assimilat- 
ing movement, which was the mission of the royalty 
forming the unity of the French nation, and the 
Count was not slow to comprehend that it was the 
independence, not to say the very existence, of his 
crown which was at stake." ^ 

Like Athens and Corinth, wherever two contig- 
uous economic systems thus come in collision, the 
eflFects ramify infinitely. In this case they warped 
all western civilization. War broke out, and Philip 
was defeated at Courtrai on July ii, 1302, when the 
whole nobility of France was annihilated. It was 
said that 20,000 Frenchmen fell, and but 100 Flem- 
ings. Then a long period of confusion followed, 
ending with a prohibition of intercourse by Louis X. 

The routes across Champagne being closed, com- 
merce was obliged to seek new channels, and it took 
to the sea. About 1330 a document, addressed by 
the officials of the Fairs to the king, stated that mer- 
chandise which previously had passed through Cham- 
pagne then went by ships.^ 

A social revolution supervened. The Fairs of 
Champagne decayed, as did the Flemish cities. 

1 Philippe le Bel en Flandres, Funck-Brentano, 128. 

' itudes sur les Foires de Champagne^ Premiere Pftrtie, Bourquelot, 

319. 



m. THE NEW EMPIRE 97 

Their impoverishment drove many weavers to Eng- 
land, whose entiigration stimulated English manu- 
factures ; more important still, Flanders, to resist 
France, entered into the English alliance. It was 
from Van Artevelde that Edward III. drew much of his 
strength. " The struggle of the Flemish communes, 
therefore, constituted the first act of the long social 
drama which unrolled itself through a whole century, 
and which historians have named the Hundred Years' 
War." 1 

When the ocean route to Italy had once been 
established, it undersold the French highways, and 
th« Fairs ceased to be held. The result was a great 
relative decline in the French influence in Flanders, 
and a proportionate increase in the German ; an 
increase which made possible the movement toward 
consolidation which took place under Charles V. 
Like Philip, Charles failed, but his eflFort caused the 
long wars of the first half of the sixteenth century. 
The rise in taxation following thereon occasioned 
the revolt of the Netherlands, and the English 
buccaneering, which, by seizing Spanish treasure, 
precipitated the mutiny of the Spanish army; the 
sack of Antwerp; and, finally, the Armada. Thus 
the Rhine and Main, and the Rhone and Seine, 
competing, crippled each other, and drove the seat 
of international exchanges into England. 

In the year 1500, although the routes through 
Germany from Venice were not frequented as of 
old, they had not been abandoned, and the mines of 
Hungary, Bohemia, and the Tyrol were still produc- 
tive. South Germany, therefore, was opulent, and 

1 Philippe U Bel en Flandres, 678. 
H 



98 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Augsburg and Nuremberg were its financial capitals. 
In especial the bankers of Augsburg were famous. 
Their affiliations with Brabant were close, they had 
counting-houses in Antwerp which were often more 
important than those in the parent city, and their 
speculations in the metals and in eastern wares were 
enormous. They also formed the most important 
group of financiers with whom governments dealt 
Although Charles had lived in a mercantile com- 
munity from his birth, he little appreciated, on his 
accession to the crown of Spain, the difficulties which 
confronted him in satisfying his ambition. Charles 
coveted the Empire as the first step toward a consoli- 
dation such as had been conceived by Charlemagne, 
and resolved to buy the crown of the King of 
the Romans. Had those who honored his drafts 
recognized the dimensions of the undertaking, they 
might have hesitated. Charles betrayed his inexpe- 
rience. On his way to Spain, in 15 17, he gave his 
ambassador drafts on the Fuggers for 94,000 florins 
to pay the electors ; the money only to be delivered 
when the choice had been made. His paternal 
grandfather, the old Emperor Maximilian, understood 
his countrymen better. Toward the end of his life 
Maximilian fell into such bitter poverty that Jacob 
Fugger had to lend him 3000 florins in 15 18, because, 
" literally his Majesty had nothing to eat " ; accord- 
ingly no one esteemed money more than he, or felt 
less inclined to waste it ; nevertheless Maximilian 
wrote to Charles reproving him for his parsimony, 
and warning him to forward forthwith 450,000 florins 
in cash, to be spent on the spot, else he would be 
defeated. 



III. THE NEW EMPIRE 99 

Francis would have been a more formidable com- 
petitor had he inspired confidence, but no one would 
trust him. In Genoa he could obtain nothing, and in 
Lyons he actually found the leading capitalists lend- 
ing to the Hapsburgs. Ultimately he received a hand- 
some gift from his mother, the Duchess of Angoul6me, 
who advanced a sum inadequate to content the elec- 
tors, it is true, but large enough to raise the price of 
votes to Charles. 

When Charles, in his eagerness, declared that he 
would be King of the Romans, " cost what it might," 
he passed from stinginess to recklessness. He 
squandered in the contest 850,000 florins, substan- 
tially all of which he had to borrow, nearly four-fifths 
of the whole amount coming from the two Augsburg 
houses, the Fuggers and the Welsers. The Fuggers 
lent 543,000 florins, and the Welsers 143,000. The 
Genoese and Florentines together contributed only 
165,000 florins. As Jacob Fugger afterward wrote : 
*' It is well known and as clear as day that your im- 
perial Majesty could never have obtained the Roman 
crown without my help." ^ 

This election was the first trial of strength be- 
tween France and Germany, and though Germany 
prevailed, it was at a vital sacrifice. To overcome 
the French king, Charles had to mortgage his means 
unduly, and the burden he then assumed impaired 
his military energy throughout his life. To maintain 
his armies he needed a large revenue. Spain, a poor 
country, and without manufactures, suffered from a 
constant deficit ; Italy yielded little ; the Holy Roman 
Empire cost more than it paid, therefore the chief 

^ Das Zeitaiter der Fugger , I., 112. 



100 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

burden fell upon the Netherlands, which, though 
rich, saw no profit in hostilities. The discontent, 
afterward culminating in general revolt, broke out 
early. In 1539 Charles undertook to collect from 
Ghent a subsidy of 400,000 florins, which the citizens 
maintained had not been lawfully granted. 

On February 9, 1540, the emperor marched from 
Brussels with 10,000 men, and a vast train of car- 
dinals, archbishops, bishops, and other Church digni- 
taries, besides " dukes, princes, earls, barons, grand 
masters, and seigniors, together with most of the 
Knights of the Golden Fleece." The cortege was 
reckoned at 60,000 men and 15,000 horses, yet the 
city accommodated all.^ Charles made an example. 
He first executed nineteen ringleaders; then he 
annulled the municipal charters, collecting not only 
the 400,000 florins, but 1 50,000 more by way of fine, 
and imposing a subsidy of 6000 yearly forever. 
Finally, he caused the deans of the guilds and chief 
burghers, in their shirts, with halters round their 
necks, to appear before him and pray for mercy. In 
all that touches the economic aspect of the Dutch 
revolt, Motley's view is interesting, as he regarded 
the revolution as a religious phenomenon, and there- 
fore minimized the effect of the pressure of taxation. 
Yet even Motley perceived that Charles was a finan- 
cier rather than a theologian. "Charles was no 
fanatic. It was the political heresy which lurked 
in the restiveness of the religious reformers imder 
dogma, tradition, and supernatural sanction to tem- 
poral power, which he was disposed to combat to 
the death." ^ If Charles had continued to reign, 

1 Rise of the Dutch Republic, ed. of David McKay, I., 69. 
* Rise of the Dutch Republic^ I., 123. 



in. THE NEW EMPIRE lOI 

ajBfairs might have turned differently, could he have 
controlled them. Perhaps he felt his grasp relaxing, 
and for this reason withdrew. As early as 1550 the 
world recognized that consolidation had failed, and 
the bankers, with one accord, sought to liquidate. 
As the Spanish influence gradually obtained the 
upper hand, the financiers grew uneasy. In 1553 
Anthony Fugger complained of the methods at 
Madrid. He detested and distrusted Erasso, the 
Spanish financial agent, intimating that if Erasso 
still found means of doing business, it could only be 
on ruinous conditions. He did not hesitate to declare 
that if the Court broke faith when payment had been 
solemnly promised, a gift to Erasso of 1000 florins 
" would make things go." He added : " I have little 
taste for such business ; having had enough of it." ^ 

When things reached this pass, Charles convened 
the Estates of the Netherlands on October 25, 1555, 
and surrendered the crown to his son Philip, who was 
a true Spaniard. Doubtless the public regret was 
sincere ; " there beyng in myne opynion not one man 
in the whole assemblie, stranger or another, that 
dewring the tyme of a good piece of his oration 
poured not oute abondantly teares ; some more, 
some less." 2 The community instinctively compre- 
hended its danger. The bulk of the population of 
the Netherlands was not Protestant, nor did it object 
to the extirpation of heresy, provided business re- 
mained unmolested. What the Dutch resisted was 
oppressive taxation whether by Church or State. 

1 Das ZHtalter der Fugger^ I., 155-6. 

^ Despatch of Sir John Mason, Life and Times of Sir Thomas 
Gresham^ Burgon, I., 175. 



I02 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Motley also has admitted that of the seventeen 
provinces, as late as 1576, "fifteen were, on the 
whole, loyal to the king ; while the old religion had, 
of late years, taken root so rapidly again, that perhaps 
a moiety of their population might be considered as 
Catholic." 1 

Holland and Zealand were of the Reformed Faith, 
but they were poor and maritime, and even in Hol- 
land the capital sided with Philip. The Prince of 
Orange thought that the defection of Amsterdam 
injured the patriots more than the campaigns of 
Alva. Most modern authorities, therefore, agree that 
financial distress, rather than religious persecution, 
occasioned the war. Mr. A. J. Crosby, the editor of 
the British State Papers relating to this period, is a 
good example. " Brabant and the rest of the provinces 
which depended on their manufactures and were in- 
finitely more wealthy and pleasant to live in [than 
Holland and Zealand] were for the most part Catho- 
lic, and it was on account of its avarice and tyranny 
that they disliked the Spanish rule, and not through 
its interference with their religion, which was prob- 
ably not so great as is usually imagined." ^ 

The abdication of the emperor, therefore, a Flem- 
ing who understood the material interests of his native 
country, and enjoyed the confidence of the conserva- 
tive class, caused regret. While he ruled, the revo- 
lution might be postponed, with his abdication the 
catastrophe began. Like Charlemagne he foresaw 
the magnitude of the crisis. 

Charles V. left so serious a deficit, that Philip af ter- 

1 J^ise ofOu Dutch Republic, III., 60. 

* Calendar of State Papers, Foreign , 1575-1577. Preface, xiv. 



ni. THE NEW EMPIRE 103 

ward declared that he could never have paid the 
floating debt, though he would gladly have done so 
" even with his blood." During the next two years 
difficulties thickened; panic prevailed in Antwerp, 
and the Fuggers, whether they would or no, were 
forced to intervene. By a contract dated February i, 
1556, Anthony Fugger agreed to deliver to Philip, in 
Spain, 400,ocx) ducats in cash, to pay his troops and 
relieve his other necessities, taking as security there- 
for such personal obligations as the king could find 
in the Netherlands, beside the pledge of the first 
" aid " which should be voted by the Estates. Only 
three months later the Fuggers made another ad- 
vance of 600,000 ducats, and in the beginning of 
IS 57 Oertel, the Fuggers' agent in Antwerp, lent 
an additional 430,000 ducats, to be repaid with the 
next bullion which should come from America. Yet, 
in spite of favors, the Spaniards hated their credit- 
ors more every day. Oertel wrote to Anthony Fug- 
ger: "I doubt whether I shall succeed in making 
Erasso our friend, for I have never met his like ; one 
who always flatters you before your face and vilifies 
you behind your back." "He and his say to who- 
ever will listen to them, that one has with nobody so 
much vexation and so little advantage as with us." ^ 
Such expedients could only be temporary, and in the 
summer of 1557 Philip suspended payments. At the 
moment, he happened to be forwarding two invoices 
of specie to the amount of 570,000 ducats to the Fug- 
gers in Flanders, and the stoppage of the shipment 
filled Anthony with wrath. Oertel implored the king 
to keep his word, and intimated that he would inter- 

^Das ZeitaUer der Fugs^er, I., 162. 



104 '^^^ ^^^^ EMPIRE CHAP. 

cede with the firm to assist him further, but Erasso 
retorted that Anthony Fugger had already begged 
the Emperor Charles not to worry him about more 
loans, for he wished to be left in peace. In vain Oer- 
tel indignantly declared that his employers had not 
left the king in his need, but in eighteen months had 
advanced a million and a half of gold ; the king twice 
told the factor " that he did it as unwillingly as he 
ever did anything, but necessity constrained him, since 
he could not fall into discredit with the soldiers." 
Philip realized his danger. Of all the peoples of the 
modem world the Spanish retained most of the Ro- 
man characteristics. They possessed the same cour- 
age, the same military qualities,' the same patience 
under hardship; but they inherited also the same 
cruelty, the same incapacity for industry and the 
higher branches of finance, and the same intellectual 
rigidity. The Spaniards could not assimilate new 
ideas. They could not think otherwise than they 
had always thought. They were a primitive type. 
Being orthodox, they could not compound with 
heresy, however heavy the cost of persecution ; and, 
when confronted with insolvency, instead of making 
a bargain with the Dutch by way of compromise, 
their instinct, like the instinct of all archaic mankind, 
was to plunder. To them it seemed cheaper to 
rob. Philip determined to send Alva to Brussels 
to replenish his treasury by confiscations and to 
reduce the population so low they would submit to 
taxation at the discretion of the cabinet at Madrid. 
Alva arrived on August 22, 1 567. Even before his 
coming, the measures taken had stimulated emigpra- 
tion on a large scale. On the twenty-ninth of the 



ni. THE NEW EMPIRE 105 

previous March, Richard Clough, Thomas Gresham's 
agent, wrote : " It is marveylus to see how the pepell 
packe away from hens ; some for one place and some 
for other, so well the papysts as the protestants ; for 
that it is thought that, howsomever it goeth, it cannot 
go well here ; for that presently all the wealthy and 
rich men on both sydes, who shuld be the stey of 
matters, make themselves away." ^ 

Alva promised Philip that he would not only make 
the Netherlands self-supporting, but yield annually 
at least 2,ocx),ooo ducats. He proceeded to raise 
the money as Milo would have done. He organized 
a supreme tribunal, afterward called the Council of 
Blood, to take cognizance of all offences which had 
been committed since the troubles in the Netherlands 
began. "The greatest crime, however, was to be 
rich, and one which could be expiated by no virtues, 
however signal. Alva was bent upon proving him- 
self as accomplished a financier as he was indisputably 
a consummate commander, and he had promised his 
master an annual income of 5cx>,ooo ducats from the 
confiscations which were to accompany the executions. 
. . . Every man, whether innocent or guilty, 
whether Papist or Protestant, felt his head shaking 
on his shoulders. If he were wealthy, there seemed 
no remedy but flight." ^ 

Such severity provoked an emigration to England, 
which ended in transferring thither many of the 
most lucrative trades of the continent. As early as 
July, 1567, Clough noted the movement, and wished 
to encourage it. He wrote : " They that were wont 

1 The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, II., 209. 
^ Rise of the Dutch Republic, II., 152. 



I06 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

to live by making of powdyr, are now undone : wish- 
ing that and if they would come into Englande they 
might have a place appointed to make powdyr . . . 
Which if they had, I wolde not doubt but they wolde 
go into Englande; and where they go, the great 
quantity of salpeter and brymstone wyll follow."^ 
The same year the Bishop of London took a census 
of the strangers in the capital, and found, of 4851 
foreigners, 3838 to be Dutch. This occurred before 
the creation of the Council of Blood. The publica- 
tion of the British State Papers^ leaves little room 
for doubt that Alva represented tolerably exactly the 
views of Spanish society, and Alva's mental processes 
were those of such a race as that which produced 
Jenghiz Khan. On returning to Madrid he boasted 
that he had executed 18,600 persons, and confiscated 
their property ; and, on relinquishing his government, 
he recommended the burning of all Dutch cities save 
such as might be needed for barracks. 

Men of this type can hardly administer successfully 
a commercial or industrial community, but they often 
make good soldiers, and the Spanish would have 
found little difficulty in subduing Holland, could they 
have guarded their communications. The resistance 
they met in the field was contemptible. All the 
evidence shows that Brabant and Flanders bred but 
sorry material for armies. In the maritime provinces 
alone, where a hardy seafaring population throve, 
was there any fighting worthy of the name. 

Spain's vulnerable point lay in her decentraliza- 
tion. Like Charlemagne's empire, pirates could cut 

^Lift and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, Burgon, 2, 241. 
■Sec Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, 1575-1577, No. 1165. 



m. THE NEW EMPIRE 10/ 

her asunder. Conducting a war upon the German 
Ocean, Philip had to transport his supplies by sea 
from Cadiz to Antwerp, and his treasure from Mexico 
to the Scheldt. He had not the funds to maintain 
both an adequate army and navy, and in making the 
attempt to do so each suffered. The English pro- 
portionately prospered, for the English worked their 
factories with fugitive Dutch labor, and laid the 
foundation of their opulence with American silver 
won by buccaneering. 

The sequence of dates is suggestive ; when Eliza- 
beth came to the throne in 1558, England possessed 
only about 50,000 tons of shipping, while Spain and 
Portugal held a substantial monopoly of the trade 
both to India and America. Alva reached Brussels 
in August, 1567, just at the moment when the export 
of Peruvian silver was assuming large proportions, 
and offering a correspondingly strong temptation to 
pirates. During Alva's residence in Flanders, com- 
petition at sea steadily gathered intensity, until, at its 
close in 1573, it had reached the ferocity of war. 
Drake's expeditions were distinctly naval campaigns. 
This competition caused the mutiny of the Spanish 
army. The mutiny forced Philip to protect his lines 
of communication by attacking his enemy's base, and 
Philip's attack took the form of the Armada, which 
was destroyed in 1588. Spain eliminated from the 
trade-routes, her rivals occupied them. The British 
organized their East India Company on December 
3i» i599> with a capital of ;£8o,ooo; the Dutch theirs 
in 1602 with a capital of 6,600,000 florins, or about 
j^3 16,000; and these sums, probably, pretty nearly 
represented the relative resources of London and 
Amsterdam. 



I08 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

The Spanish ships were large and slow, high out 
of water, and incapable of beating to windward. 
They were therefore easy to attack and unable to re- 
taliate. They were laden with goods, bullion, and men. 
A mixed fleet of privateers, sailing under commissions 
issued by the Prince of Orange, used Dover as a 
base, and there, on certain market days, these Dutch, 
French, and English rovers sold Spanish gentlemen at 
auction for their ransom. They brought about ;£ioo a 
head. Alva passed six years in Brabant, from August, 
1567, to December, 1573, and during his regency the 
losses must have been enormous. The Spanish mer- 
chants set their damages at upwards of 3,000,000 
ducats, and finally declined to contract to supply the 
army, but, aside from this, tons of bullion fell into Eng- 
lish hands. In 1 568 Philip's credit was bad ; never- 
theless, he succeeded in obtaining 450,000 ducats 
in Genoa, which he despatched to Alva to pay his 
troops. French privateers chased the ships bearing 
the treasure into south of England ports, where Eliz- 
abeth appropriated it. Sir Thomas Gresham coined 
it for domestic use, " and so with the said monney, 
her Majestie maie paie her debtes both here and in 
Flaunders, ... to the great honour and credit of her 
Majestie throughout all Christendom." Shortly after- 
ward Gresham announced to Cecil, "I left order 
with my servant. Hew Clowghe, to deliver at his 
comyng, V sackes of new Spannyshe Ryalls; . . . 
at the Towre ... in good secreat order," willing 
his man " to saye . . . that the more expedyssone he 
did use in the coinage, the more profytable servyze 
he shuld doo to the Queene's Majestie." ^ 

"^Life and Tinus of Sir Thomas Gresham^ Burgon, II., 305-306. 



ra. THE NEW EMPIRE lOQ 

As the American silver trade grew in value, the 
onslaught waxed hotter. In 1 572 Drake sailed on his 
famous voyage to Panama, where he surprised, on 
the isthmus, a mule train loaded with silver. The 
silver he buried, as of inferior value, but freighted 
his ships with gold and jewels. What he realized no 
one ever knew. And Drake was only one of scores 
who sucked the Spaniard's blood. After six years of 
service Philip recalled Alva, not because he objected 
to Alva's methods, but because Alva failed to make 
the provinces pay. In spite of confiscations and 
sacks, the budget, instead of showing a surplus, showed 
a chronic deficit. When Alva left Brussels the 
arrears due to the troops amounted to 6,Soo,0(X) 
ducats, the payment of one-half of which would have 
maintained discipline. Probably Spain lost annually 
at least 3,ocx),ooo ducats by piracy. In Holland, not 
only private soldiers but officers high in rank were 
straitened. Alva himself kept his bed during the 
last weeks of his government to escape his creditors. 
The arteries being cut, the organism bled to death. 
Therefore, " after the arrival of a fleet at Seville the 
American silver flowed through the land like water, 
not fertilizing, but, on the contrary, wasting it, and 
leaving even sharper dearth behind." ^ 

At last the blow fell suddenly. Toward the begin- 
ning of August, 1576, news reached Madrid that 
affairs in the north had reached a crisis. A mutiny 
had broken out. The soldiers threatened to sack the 
whole country. Philip felt the supreme moment had 
come, and appealed to the Fuggers to save him. 

The Contador, Gamica, demanded of Thomas 

1 Das ZeitaUer der Fugger, II., 150. 



no THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Miiller, the Fuggers' agent, that he should send 
200,000 crowns to the Netherlands; ''the Fuggers 
must not abandon the king in his need." If the 
troops were not satisfied, the provinces would be 
lost, and the Fuggers would be responsible. As soon 
as the soldiers saw the Fuggers' bills, Gamica de- 
clared, they would wait with patience until the ducats 
came. An answer must be given in the morning* 
Nevertheless, he sent again the same night to say 
that the Fuggers must pay, else Miiller knew what 
would happen to them. When Miiller replied that 
the Fuggers had truly served the king, and that he 
knew not what could befall them, Gamica pulled out 
a cross, kissed it, and said, "I swear by the holy 
cross if Flanders is lost for want of money it will 
be their fault." The factor then visited President 
Hopper, and asked his advice ; but Hopper took the 
part of Gamica, and adjured Miiller for the love of 
God to prove what true servants of the king the 
Fuggers were. By so doing, they would put not 
only Philip, but the whole Netherlands, under an 
eternal debt of gratitude.^ 

That same night the king wrote to the factor, and 
declared in council, that no one but the Fuggers 
could help him in this pinch, and that this should be 
the last service he would ask of them. Miiller was 
harassed ; for, though feeling no confidence in Spain, 
he feared to alienate Philip, lest he should include 
the Fuggers' loans in a second declaration of insol- 
vency which he had issued in 1575. These loans 
exceeded 5,000,000 ducats. Therefore, in order not 
to " spill the broth altogether," he agreed to send the 

1 Dm ZeUalter der Fugger^ I., 180. 



in. THE NEW EMPIRE m 

200,000 crowns. Philip, overjoyed, thought the dan- 
ger past, and expressed his gratitude ; but the loan 
came too late. On November 4, 1576, the garrison 
of Antwerp sacked the town. That they succeeded, 
and succeeded almost without loss, displays the mili- 
tary inaptitude of the population. The citizens had 
full notice of the plans of the mutineers, they had the 
support of the government, abundant funds, arms, 
and competent officers. They even undertook to 
reduce the citadel where the -troops were quartered. 
Yet at the first onset of their enemy they fled in such 
disgraceful rout that, during the whole day, but two 
hundred Spaniards fell, while more Flemings were 
slaughtered in the streets than were Huguenots in 
the streets of Paris in the massacre of Saint Barthol- 
omew. All told, the mutineers numbered less than 
6000 men. 

Antwerp itself was partially burned and altogether 
ruined. Capital fled, arid the town ceased to be a 
dominant market. The experience of the Fuggers 
shows how business suffered, and explains what 
Garnica meant when he urged them to befriend the 
king lest worse should befall them. During the sack 
the Fuggers' factor was taken and had to pay 1 1,000 
crowns as ransom ; furthermore the firm lost ;£2000 
which it had placed on deposit, and lastly one 
Colonel Fugger, a relative of the family, who had 
gone to Flanders to serve under Alva, in command 
of an Augsburg regiment, presented himself and de- 
manded 50,000 crowns as the price of his protection. 
As the officials in Madrid had foreseen, the mutiny 
proved decisive. A brilliant campaign had just ended 
in Zealand. The town of Zierickzee, in the heart of 



112 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

Protestant Holland, had fallen after a long siege, but 
when the troops deserted, the Prince of Orange 
quickly recovered all that had been lost. For the 
Fuggers, too, the end had well nigh come. Although 
they escaped being included in the decree of Septem- 
ber I, 1575, suspending payments to creditors, they 
were too deeply involved to extricate themselves. 

And now all men saw that either Spain or Eng- 
land must succumb. The mutiny illuminated the 
future even to Spanish eyes. If Spain were to remain 
the heart of an organism of which Mexico and the 
Netherlands were the members, she must protect 
the arteries through which her life-blood flowed. 
England had cut those arteries, and hence a convul- 
sion which portended dissolution. 

Philip, like Xerxes, comprehended at last that, for 
his country to live, his rival must be destroyed; but, 
like all Spaniards, he thought too slowly. Already 
capital had migrated, and long before 1588 the Brit- 
ish owned the means at home to repel attack. The 
nation had ceased to be dependent upon foreign 
loans for funds to maintain an armament. Until the 
overthrow of credit upon the continent, the English 
government had borrowed abroad, latterly in Flan- 
ders, and Sir Thomas Gresham had managed their 
negotiations with skill; but, as the resources of 
Antwerp sank, Gresham observed that those of Lon- 
don rose, until he became convinced that domestic 
accumulations had reached the desired point. Ac- 
cordingly he advised Cecil to apply to the "Mer- 
chant-Adventurers." " Assuring you, Sir, I do know 
for certain, that the Duke de Alva is more trowblid 
with the Queene's Majestie's gret credit, and with the 



m. THE NEW EMPIRE II3 

vent of her highness' commodities at Hamborough, 
than he is with anny thing else, and quakes for f care : 
whiche is one of the chifest things that is the let 
that the said Duke cannot com by the tenth penny 
that he now demaundeth for the sale of all goods, 
anny kind of waye, in the Low Country (which, Sir, 
I beleve will be his utter undoing.) Therefore, Sir, 
to conclude, I would wishe that the Queene's Maj- 
estie in this time shuld not use anny strangers, but 
her own subjects ; wherbie he, and all other princes, 
male see what a Prince of power she ys." ^ 

It would be needless here to repeat the story of the 
Armada, which is known to every child. It suffices 
to say that with Drake's victory off Calais, on 
August 9, 1588, a readjustment of the social equilib- 
rium began, which gpradually moulded that mighty 
economic system whose heart, for more than two 
hundred years, lay upon the Thames. On that day, 
also, the organism which had centred at Venice and 
in Flanders, which had given birth to the Augsburg 
bankers and the Hanseatic League, received its death 
wound, and the long strife opened between Holland, 
England, and France for the command of the oceanic 
eastern trade. 

These facts seem to justify the conclusion that the 
centre of energy was forced from the continent of 
Europe into England because of the physical struc- 
ture of the peninsula, which precluded consolidation, 
and therefore encouraged war. War is economic 
competition in its sharpest aspect ; but parallel eco- 
nomic systems connecting common termini must 
consolidate or compete. The continent of Europe, 

'^Life and Tim^s 0/ Sir Thomas GresAam, II., 540. 
I 



114 T^^ ^^^ EMPIRE CHAP. 

cut into transverse sections by trade-routes which did 
not converge, could not consolidate, and therefore 
has been subject to such catastrophes as the sack of 
Antwerp. 

I have elsewhere attempted to describe the rise of 
the English Empire,^ and accordingly need here only 
indicate the form which that empire has assumed. 
It is an economic system connecting Asia and Amer- 
ica by way of the Red Sea and the Cape of Good 
Hope. In other words, England accomplished on a 
great scale, by means of water communications, what 
Alexander failed in doing on a small, because of the 
cost of overland routes. From Hindustan the Eng- 
lish system stretches, by way of Egypt and South 
Africa, the two stopping-places on its two lines of 
travel, to the British Islands, which have served not 
only as a centre of exchanges, but as a focus of 
industry, because of their minerals. Thence it 
spread over North America, which afforded an ex- 
panding market. The United States was politically 
severed from this system by the Revolution of 1776, 
but continued economically to appertain to it until 
of late it has begun to assume the aspect of the 
heart of a new organism. It is also worth observing 
that the success of the American Revolution, like the 
success of the Dutch, hinged on European rivabries. 
Had not England and France been competing for 
the same trade between the same termini, and had 
the colonies been unaided by French money, troops, 
and ships, England might probably have suppressed 
the rebellion. 

The loss of the American colonies accentuates the 

^ See TAe Law of Civilization and Decay* 



ni. THE NEW EMPIRE II5 

fact that England rose slowly to supremacy, and that 
until she developed her minerals she did not reach 
maturity. It may well be doubted whether she would 
have prevailed against imperial France had she relied 
solely upon commerce as the source of wealth, or 
even upon such manufactures as she could conduct 
without fully utilizing her iron and coaL Her high 
fortune came with the " industrial revolution," which 
began in 1760, and which, by 1800, enabled her to 
undersell Sweden and France in iron and steel, and 
India in cotton. It was this combination of advan- 
tages which gave England the energy to conquer 
and retain under a single administration that system 
of trade-routes, of bases of supply and markets, 
which encircled two-thirds of the globe, and which 
raised her, during the nineteenth century, to an emi- 
nence unequalled since the disintegration of Rome. 
Yet, in spite of all the advantages attending ocean 
transportation, land traffic between Asia and Europe 
never wholly ceased. It probably fell lowest during 
the Mongol domination, but with the migration of 
energy to the shores of the North Sea it received a 
stimulus which, slowly gathering strength, has cre- 
ated another vast empire based on the continental 
thoroughfares which connect China, Turkestan, and 
Persia with the Atlantic. In fine, the growth of Rus- 
sia was supplementary to the growth of England, and 
obeyed similar laws. 



CHAPTER IV 

Speaking broadly, the modem Russian Empire is 
formed by the consolidation of a series of river val- 
leys running north and south, but connected through 
their branches in such a manner as to make an almost 
unbroken waterway from St. Petersburg to Lake Bai- 
kal. From Baikal the Amur completes the system to 
the Pacific. Centring at Moscow, these natural trade- 
routes radiate like the spokes of a wheel. To the 
north, by way of the Volga and Vologda, the Dwina» 
Archangel and the Arctic are reached; while from 
Vologda the Suchona and Witchegda lead to the Pet- 
chora and the fur-bearing region of the Samoieds. 
To the south the Oka and the Don stretch to the Sea 
of Azov. To the southwest the Oka and the Volga 
flow to the Caspian; while directly eastward the 
Volga communicates with the Kama, and the Kama 
by an easy portage with the rivers of Siberia. 

Under such geographical conditions commerce 
flows as readily to a northern as to a southern mar- 
ket, and, since the opening of the Middle Ages, the 
social system of the empire has adjusted itself to both. 
Until about 1150 a.d., when the countries bordering 
upon the North Sea acquired a certain opulence, the 
Euxine and the Bosphorus afforded the only out- 
let for exchanges. Accordingly, Kieff, upon the 
Dnieper, became the seat of administration, and 
merchants journeyed to Constantinople along the 

116 







s 




Pern 



J 



^ama 






khftiT 





CHAP. IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 17 

avenues which offered the least resistance. These 
avenues were the three rivers flowing south, the Volga, 
the Don, and the Dnieper, the Volga being utilized 
through the short portage at Zaritzin which connects 
it with the Don, and by which the Sea of Azov is 
easily reached. 

The chronology thenceforward tells the story with 
absolute clearness. The first dated document relating 
to the Fairs of Champagne, which became the north- 
em centre of exchanges, is of 1 1 14 a.d. Liibeck was 
founded in 1143. Therefore, by 1150, the thorough- 
fare through the Baltic was established. According 
to Gibbon, Constantinople reached her zenith dur- 
ing the third quarter of the tenth century, under 
Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces. Zimisces 
died in 976. Contemporaneously, Kiev's great era 
opened with Saint Vladimir in 972, and ended with 
laroslaf the Great, who reigned imtil 1054. After 
iicx), or with the rise of the Fairs of Champagne, 
Kieff's decline set in, and in 11 69, twenty-six years 
subsequent to the foundation of Liibeck, the town 
was sacked by the Prince of Suzdalia, the predecessor 
of the Czars of Moscow. This proves that the north- 
em routes had then acquired an importance equal to 
the southern. Nevertheless, they did not decisively 
preponderate, for Venice and Genoa were as good 
customers as Liibeck and Bruges. Therefore a 
period as it were of slack-water intervened, when, 
in the words of Rambaud, ** Russia ceased to have a 
centre about which she gravitated as a mass."^ Not 
having a central administration, Russian society dis- 
integrated, and the Mongol domination ensued. The 

^ Histoire de la J^ussie, 90. 



Il8 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

battle of the Kalka was fought in 1224, toward 1285 
the Golden Horde permanently established them- 
selves in the south, and Batu built Sarai. 

The Mongols controlled the southern route from 
Lake Baikal to the Black Sea by Samarkand and 
Trebizond, as well as the one which leads by the Syr- 
Daria to Sarai and the Azov. From the earliest 
times these roads had thus debouched, and the traffic 
upon them had made the fortune of the Greek cities 
of the Euxine of the sixth and seventh centuries 
before Christ. The Mongols adhered to the ancient 
paths. Friar John of Pian de Carpine, who in 1246 
carried to the Grand Khan a letter from the Pope, 
went close to the head of the Sea of Azov, then 
passed near Sarai, then, skirting the Aral and follow- 
ing the Syr-Daria, he rode almost due east to Kara- 
korum. William of Rubruck was taken over much of 
the same ground, only he crossed the Don higher up, 
and left the Volga not very far from Zaritza.^ 

The books of travel all show that the Mongol trans- 
portation was good, and that they moved rapidly. 
Timour's posting service was famous, and Gonzalez 
de Clavijo, in 1404, found the road from Trebizond 
to Samarkand better equipped than Russian high- 
ways have usually been up to the introduction of 
steam. 

Russian society remained in this fluid condition until 
it received an impulse toward centralization through 
the rise to supremacy of the markets on the German 
Ocean. The movement in this direction began after 

'^Journey of Friar William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the 
World, 1253-1255. Edited by Hon. W. W. Rockhill, Hakluyt Soc. 
Publication, Second Series, No. IV. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 19 

mariners had overcome their fear of the ocean voyage 
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. 

In 1 3 17 a regular packet service was established 
between Flanders and Venice, and the following 
table of receipts of the fairs of Saint John of Troyes 
shows the diminution of revenue, through a series of 
years. 

In 127s the fair yielded 1300 livres. 

In 1296 the fair yielded 1375 livres. 

In 1297 Philip invaded Flanders. 

In 13 17 packet service established. 

In 1320 the fair yielded 250 livres. 

In 1340 the fair yielded 180 livres. 

About 1322 the merchants of Champagne sub- 
mitted to the government a series of propositions for 
legislation, " to prevent the ruin of the fairs " ; and 
in 1433 Henry VI. of England, who was then in pos- 
session of Paris, granted the town of Provins an ex- 
emption from taxes because her cloth works could no 
longer maintain her craftsmen, who were obliged to 
labor in the fields. The extinction of the Fairs of 
Champagne represented a fundamental alteration in 
the social equilibrium. The trade-routes having 
abandoned France, the French connection lost im- 
portance to the Netherlands, and the Flemish cities, 
Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, which had prospered be- 
cause of their convenience to Champagne, sank in 
relative consequence.^ Energy migrated to Brabant, 
for the trend of exchanges thenceforward for a 
century was toward Germany, and Brussels and Ant- 
werp had the advantage. Antwerp especially, not 

1 Le Sticle des ArUvelde, Vander kinder e, Chapter VI. 



I20 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

only surpassed Bruges in its harbor, but afforded 
landlocked navigation to the Rhine. 

The revolution, nevertheless, moved at first slowly. 
During the Hundred Years' War the Netherlands 
were paralyzed. Misery prevailed, for communica- 
tions were cut both by land and sea; on land by 
marauding, and on the sea by piracy. Nothing pros- 
pered until toward the return of peace. The turning- 
point seems to have been the recapture of Paris by 
the French in 1436. In 1443 Charles VII. officially 
admitted the collapse of the Fairs of Champagne by 
establishing other fairs at Lyons.^ The year previous 
the same cause had produced a movement eastward 
in the Low Countries. In 1442 a great migration to 
Antwerp occurred of the foreign merchants domiciled 
at Bruges. Merchants sought the Scheldt, for nearly 
the whole of the business which had been transacted 
in Champagne was transferred to Antwerp, and in 
less than sixty years the favored town received an 
even stronger stimulus. By the discovery of the sea 
passage to India the eastern trade was drawn from 
the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and the fortune of 
Genoa and Venice followed in the track of the fortune 
of Champagne. The exchanges of the whole world 
were, for a season, centralized in Brabant, and the 
vibration of this accretion of energy penetrated the 
recesses of Asia. Thenceforward the development 
of Russia followed step by step the development of 
Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London. 

Antwerp dated the advent of her high fortune from 
the migration of 1442, and within a generation the 

^ On the decline of the Fairs of Champagne see Etudes sur les 
Foires de Champagne^ F61ix Bourquelot, Deuxi^me Partie, 301 et seq. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 121 

impulsion had been felt upon the Volga and the 
Kama. 

In 1462 Ivan III., who first took the title of Auto- 
crat of all Russia, ascended the Muscovite throne. 
He refused to pay tribute to the Tartars, and when, 
in 1480, Akhmat Khan attacked him, he held the 
enemy on the river Urga until winter destroyed 
them. That repulse ended the Mongol domination. 

In 1499 Vasco da Gama returned from his first 
voyage, and in 1 502 Venice was already losing trade 
in favor of Lisbon and the North Sea. In 1505 
Ivan III. died, having extended the Muscovite influ- 
ence over the system of trade-routes which debouch 
on the Baltic, from the Urals to Novgorod. By 1533 
Antwerp enjoyed an uncontested supremacy, and in 
that year Ivan the Terrible succeeded his father. All 
authorities agree that the organization of the modern 
Russian Empire dates from the reign of Ivan IV. 
In the year 1688 the revolution broke out which 
exiled the Stuarts, led to the English coalition with 
the Dutch against the French, and laid the founda- 
tion of British ascendency. Parliament incorporated 
the Bank of England in 1694, and in 1703 Peter the 
Great laid the comer stoiie of the citadel of St. 
Petersburg. 

Ivan the Terrible came to the throne in 1533, when 
three years old. In 1554 he took Astrakhan, and 
consolidated the valley of the Volga to the Caspian ; 
also at this juncture the Russians first opened direct 
relations with the English, through the White Sea. 
In 1553 Richard Chancellor, who had been sent 
with Hugh Willoughby by the merchants of London 
to seek for a northeast passage to Cathay, came " to 



122 THE NEW EMPIRE crap. 

the place where he found no night at all, but a con- 
tinuall light and brightnesse of the Sunne shining 
clearly vpon the huge and mighty Sea." Finally, he 
entered the port of Nenoksa, at the mouth of the 
Dwina, journeyed to Moscow, was welcomed by the 
Czar, and returned home with the promise of liberty 
to trade. In consequence Mary granted a charter to 
the Russia Company in 1555, and sent Chancellor 
back to establish relations in Moscow, and also ''to 
learne how men may passe from Russia either by 
land or by sea to Cathaia." ^ 

Chancellor discharged his mission and sailed for 
England with furs worth ^£20,000 and a Rus- 
sian ambassador. After a voyage of four months, 
his ships split on the rocks of Pitsligo Bay, and 
Chancellor perished. Undiscouraged, the Company 
appointed Anthony Jenkinson to the command of 
four vessels freighted with cloth, cottons, sugar, and 
the like, together with artisans to set up a rope- 
walk. Jenkinson unloaded his cargo in the Dwina, 
and then, following the road which is still travelled, 
he ascended the river to Vologda, and thence crossed 
by land to Moscow. 

On April 23, 1558, Jenkinson left Moscow for 
Persia with the hope of ultimately penetrating to 
China. Descending the Moskva to the Oka, he 
passed into the Volga and waited at Nijni-Novgorod 
for a military convoy of five hundred boats bound 
for Astrakhan. On the 29th day of his journey he 
came to Kazan, which he described as " a fayre towne, 
. . . with a strong castle, . . . and was walled round 

1 Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia^ by Anthony 
Jenkinson, Hakluyt Soc. Publications. Introduction, Vol. I., ii, iii. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 23 

about with timber and earth, but now the Emperour 
of Russia hath giuen order to plucke downe the olde 
walles and to build them againe of free stone." ^ On 
July 6 he reached Perevolog, or the neck of land 
between the Volga and the Don, eight miles across, 
and now traversed by a railway, but then "a dan- 
gerous place for theeues and robbers, but now it is 
not so euill as it hath beene, by reason of the Empe- 
rour of Russia his conquests." Astrakhan he found 
but a sorry abode,. having "such abundance of flyes 
. . . as the like was neuer seene in any land;" the 
buildings "most base and simple" and the town 
walled with earth. There was a plague raging and 
also a famine, and the Tartars " dyed a great number 
of them for hunger, which lay all the llande through 
in heapes dead, and like to beastes, unburyed, very 
pittif uU to beholde ; many of them were also solde by • 
the Russes." " There is a certaine trade of merchan- 
dize there vsed, but as yet so small and beggerly, 
that it is not woorth the making mention, and yet 
there come merchantes thither from diuers places." ^ 
From Astrakhan Jenkinson sailed along the coast 
of the Caspian to Koshak Bay, the voyage taking 
nearly a month, and on September 14 started with a 
caravan of a thousand camels for Bokhara. On this 
journey Jenkinson met with treatment which explains 
why these caravan roads could no longer be profit- 
ably used. Police had ceased to exist, the deserts 
swarmed with robbers, and the governments of the 
communities through which they passed connived at 

1 Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia^ by Anthony 
Jenkinson, Hakluyt Soc. Publications, I., 49. 
* Ilnd, 55, 57, 58. 



124 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

plunder. For example, the " Soltan of Ka)rte " pro- 
vided the caravan with an escort of eighty men, who 
travelled with them two days and ate " much of our 
victuals." The morning of the third day "hauing 
ranged the wildernes for the space of foure houres, 
they mette vs coming towardes vs, as fast as their 
horse could runne," declaring that they had found 
tracks of the enemy, " and asked us what we would 
giue them to conduct vs further, or els they would 
retume. To whome we offered as we thought good, 
but they refused our offer, and would haue more, . . . 
and went backe to their Soltane, who (as wee coniec- 
tured) was priuie to the conspiracie." After which 
they were set upon, fought till morning, and en- 
camped upon a hill cut off from water " to our great 
discomfort, because neither we nor our camels had 
drunke in 2 days before." Finally the merchants 
paid a ransom and marched on, but being again 
attacked in their camp in the middle of the night, 
" we immediately laded our camels " and fled to the 
Oxus. At length, on December 22, Jenkinson arrived 
at Bokhara, just eight months after his departure 
from Moscow.^ 

Jenkinson had little opinion of the Tartars as cus- 
tomers, or of central Asia as a market. " There is 
yeerely great resort of Marchants to this Citie of 
Boghar, which trauaile in great Carauans from the 
Countries thereabout adioyning, as India, Persia, 
Balke, Russia, with diuers others, and in times past 
from Cathay, when there was passage, but these 
Marchants are so beggerly and poore, and bring so 

1 Early Voyages and Travels to Rtissia and Persia, by Anthony 
Jenkinson, Hakluyt Soc. Publications, Vol., I. 76, 78. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 125 

little quantities of wares, lying two or 3 yeeres to sell 
the same, that there is no hope of any good trade 
there to be had worthy the following." Worst of all 
Jenkinson found no demand for his cloths. The 
Indians brought muslins, "but gold, siluer, pretious 
stones and spices they bring none. I enquired and 
perceiued that all such .trade passeth to the Ocean 
Sea." " I offered to barter " with them, " but they 
would not barter for such commoditie as cloth." As 
for the king, "he shewed himselfe a very Tartar," 
for he left for the wars without paying the English- 
man his debts, and Jenkinson had to compromise and 
take part payment in goods, "but of a begger, better 
paiment I could not haue, and glad I was so to be 
paide and dispatched." ^ 

On his return Jenkinson took back ambassadors 
with him, but embassies were also sent from central 
Asia to Moscow to negotiate commercial treaties in 
IS57> 1558, 1563, 1566, and 1583. That commerce 
was flowing strongly northward during the reign of 
Ivan the Terrible is therefore manifest, yet the move- 
ment must have been new, for Jenkinson stated em- 
phatically that, in his time, Bokharans knew nothing 
of Russia. On the whole, Jenkinson lost no money ; 
for "although our iourney hath bene so miserable, 
dangerous and chargeable with losses, charges and 
expenses, as my penne is not able to expresse the 
same; yet shall wee bee able ... to answere the 
principall with profite."^ 

During the next twenty years the Russia Company 
regularly prosecuted its business, establishing count- 
ing-houses wherever trade justified the investment, 

1 IHd, , 86-88. « Ibid., I., 108. 



126 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

and soon it had factories at Cholmogory, Vologda, 
YaraslaVy Novgorod, and Moscow, beside agencies at 
Kazan and Astrakhan. If the situation of these 
towns be examined, it will be found that the English 
followed the thoroughfares along which the Czar had 
extended his jurisdiction* The movements were 
identical, both being effects of an identical cause. 

The weak point of the Russian Empire has been 
that the travel on its interminable highways has 
never paid for their maintenance and protection, 
and therefore the community as a whole has not 
prospered. Perhaps the Russians were relatively 
wealthier under Ivan the Terrible than they are now. 
Giles Fletcher, who was sent to Moscow as ambas- 
sador by Elizabeth in 1588, wrote a description of 
Russia, which certainly was not flattered, as, when he 
returned, he sent for his friend Mr. Wayland, preb- 
endary of Saint Paul's, "with whom he hastily 
expressed his thankfulnesse to God for his safe 
return from so great a danger." Ulysses was not 
" more glad to be come out of the den of Polyphemus 
than he was to be rid out of the power of such a 
barbarous Prince ; who, counting himself by a proud 
and voluntary mistake Emperor of all nations^ cared 
not for the law of all nations ; and who was so habited 
in blood, that, had he cut off this ambassador's head, 
he and his friends might have sought their own 
amends, but the question is, where he would have 
found it," The book was published in 1591, but 
suppressed upon the remonstrance of the Russia Com- 
pany, who feared its freedom might injure business. 
Fletcher, notwithstanding his prejudice, found Mos- 
cow a very considerable place. "The number of 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 12/ 

houses (as I have heard) through the whole citie 
(being reckoned by the emperour a little before it 
was fired by the Crim) was 41,500 in all. Since the 
Tartar besieged and fired the town (which was in the 
yeare 1571) there lieth waste of it a great breadth of 
ground, which before was well set and planted with 
buildings, specially that part on the south side of 
Moskua. So that now the citie of Mosko ... is not 
much bigger than the citie of London." Fletcher 
thought that even under Ivan the people had begun to 
suffer. He remarked, after speaking of Novgorod, 
Kazan, and one or two cities beside, that " the other 
townes have nothing that is greatly memorable, save 
many ruins within their walles. Which sheweth the 
decrease of the Russe people under this government." 
Still even Fletcher admitted that "three brethren 
marchants of late, that traded together with one stocke 
in common, . . . were found to bee worth 300,000 
rubbels in money, besides landes, cattels and other 
commodities;" one item being "5000 bondslaves at 
the least." And these men lived by the Urals.^ As 
for Ivan himself he was reputed to be enormously 
wealthy. Michael Lock, in a letter to the Company 
in 1572, observed " that he is the moste rytche prynce 
of treasour that lyvethe this day on earthe, except 
the Turk." Having occasion to move part of his 
property at the time of the Tartar invasion, " he did 
layde fouer thowsande greate carts with treasur of 
Jewells, gold, silver and silk, and yet left the same 
two castles still f urnyshid with his ordenary howsolde 
stufife." a 

'^Russia at ike Close of the Sixteenth Century^ Hakluyt Soc. Publica- 
tions, edited by £. A. Bond, 17, 62. ^IHd,, Introduction, xi, xiL 



128 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Perhaps the history of Russia illustrates more 
strikingly than any other the inexorable exigencies 
of competition. The shifting of the market to the 
north stimulated movement along the Russian rivers. 
Growing commerce led to police, and the extension 
of the imperial administration; but when the semi- 
barbarous Slavs came in contact with Europeans 
they had no alternative but to be conquered or to 
accept western standards. From the reign of Ivan 
III. all the Czars strove to import foreign inventions, 
artisans, engineers, and officers, with the effect of 
increasing the expenditure disproportionately, be- 
cause of the social inertia arising from slow and 
costly transportation.^ 

Nevertheless, although the result might be obtained 
at a prodigious sacrifice, Russia could become formid- 
able as a military power, and this the Swedes and Poles 
soon perceived. In 1556 Gustavus of Sweden sent a 
special embassy to remonstrate with Queen Mary 
against the trade carried on by Englishmen at the 
port of St. Nicholas, and in 1569, when Ivan had 
occupied Narva, King Sigismund of Poland flatly told 
Elizabeth, when she protested against certain seizures 
of ships, that by reason of "our admonition divers 
princes already content themselves, and abstaine from 
the Narve. The others that will not abstaine from 
the said voyage shall be impeached by our navie, 
and incurre the danger of losse of life, liberty, wife 
and children." He explained to Elizabeth that Eng- 
lish commerce with Muscovy in munitions of war 

^ For a criticism of Russian finance during the last century, see an 
exhaustive article by W. C. Ford in the Political Science Quarterly^ 
March, 1902, ''The Economy of Russia." 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 129 

was " full of danger, not onely to our parts, but also 
to the open destruction of all Christians and liberall 
nations." Isolated, Ivan could not obtain the arms, 
the engineers, and the material to be highly formi- 
dable, but by commerce he organized an effective 
force. " We know and f eele of a surety the Musco- 
vite . , . dayly to grow mightie by the increase of 
such things as be brought to the Narve, while not 
onely warres but also weapons heretofore unknowen 
to him, and artificers and arts be brought unto him ; 
by meane whereof he maketh himself strong to van- 
quish all others. . . . We seemed hitherto to van- 
quish him onely in this, that he was rude of arts and 
ignorant of policies. If so be that this navigation of 
the Narve continue, what shall be unknowen to 
him.?"i 

To make inventions profitable, however, they must 
be had early and used intelligently, else they are 
superseded where they originated, and competitors 
maintain their relative advantage. Early in the 
sixteenth century Sigismund von Herberstein no- 
ticed that the Russians lacked the mechanical genius 
to keep abreast of the age, even when given improved 
implements: "The prince [Vassili IV., 1505-1533] 
has now German and Italian cannon-founders, who 
cast cannon and other pieces of ordnance, and iron 
cannon balls such as our own princes use ; and yet 
these people, who consider that everything depends 
upon rapidity, cannot understand the use of them, 
nor can they ever employ them in an engagement. 
I omitted also to state, that they seem not to compre- 

1 The Treatise of the Rmse Commonwealthy by Giles Fletcher, 
Hakluyt Soc. Pablications, Introduction, xvii 



I30 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

hend the different kinds of artillery, or rather I 
should say, what use to make of them. I mean to 
say, that they do not know when they ought to use 
the larger kind of cannon which are intended for de- 
stroying walls, or the smaller for breaking the force 
of an enemy's attack." ^ 

Thus, whether they would or no, the instinct of 
self-preservation forced the Russians during the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries into the vortex of 
competition. The market had migrated from the 
south to the north, therefore the ancient avenues 
which had sufficed them when Byzantium held 
supremacy, sufficed no longer, and a new network 
of waterways came into use by the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, which consolidated into the exist- 
ing trans-Siberian economic system. 

When at Bokhara, Jenkinson had found the road 
to Cathay closed by a war between the Kirghiz and 
the cities of Tashkend and Kashgar. For three 
years no caravans had reached the S3rr-Daria, but 
merchants whom he met gave him information, which 
he appended to his report in the form of an itinerary 
of routes. He described three roads, two by Kash- 
gar, and a third, mentioned by an inhabitant of Perm, 
through the north of Siberia, and, seemingly, south 
by the Lena. Jenkinson wrote of the year 1559, and 
not impossibly the growing anarchy in central Asia 
may have hastened the opening of the outlet to Pe- 
king across the Siberian plain. During the fifteenth 
century the Russians reached the Urals, and in 1499 
they even sent a force into the valley of the ObL 

^ Notes upon Russia^ by the Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, Hak- 
luyt Soc. Publications, 98. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 131 

Among the early settlers at Perm were the Strog- 
anofls, probably wealthy Tartars, who enjoyed large 
privileges and in return kept order. They guarded the 
passes of the Ural at their own expense, built block- 
houses, bought guns, and hired men. About 1573 the 
Stroganoff s decided to conquer the rich fur country 
of the Obi, and to this end they employed a certain 
Cossack pirate of the Volga named Yermak. Yermak, 
with a mixed band of 800 adventurers, armed and 
equipped by the Stroganoffs, started to cross the 
Urals on September i, 1581. The story of the 
conquest of Siberia deserves to be read in detail 
because of its bearing on the opening of new 
trade-routes.^ Here only a summary is possible. 
Yermak followed the rivers, ascending the Tchussa- 
waya and the Serebrianka as far as the boats would 
float, when an easy portage brought him to the Jara- 
vli, an affluent of the Taghil, which, through the 
Tura and the Tobol, enters the Irtish at Tobolsk; 
the whole system forming part of the valley of the 
Obi. Near Tobolsk lay the Tartar capital Sibir, 
from whence the name Siberia. Yermak attacked 
and defeated the Tartars and occupied Sibir. He 
then sent one of his robber comrades, who had been 
condemned to death by Ivan the Terrible, to Moscow 
with sables and the news of his victory. Ivan is said 
to have created Yermak a prince. He certainly 
made him the first governor of Siberia, and sent him 
his own mantle. Sibir became shortly a famous 
market, merchants flocking thither from far and near, 
but on Yermak's death in action the Tartars regained 

^ A very good account of Yermak and his successors is to be found 
in Jiussia on the Pacific and the Siberian Raihoay^ Vladimir. 



132 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

the town. The Russians thereupon removed to 
Tobolsk, about twelve miles distant, and Sibir slowly 
disappeared. 

The Russians were few in number, and the con- 
quest of Siberia amounted to little more than guard- 
ing the more exposed portions of the streams with 
blockhouses. Between the Ket and its tributaries, 
which belong to the system of the Obi, and the Kas 
and its tributaries, which belong to that of the Yeni- 
sei, there is only an interval of five miles.^ Near the 
junction stood Yeniseisk, which is supposed to have 
been founded in 1618. It probably consisted of a 
palisaded enclosure of a hundred yards or so square, 
with a church, magazine, and storehouse. Like To- 
bolsk, Yeniseisk became a centre of the fur trade, 
and from thence men wandered farther into the inte- 
rior, seeking always the path of least resistance east- 
ward. In this case that path proved to be the portage 
from the valley of the Yenisei to the valley of the 
Lena, by the neck of land between the two rivers 
across which the road from Ilimsk to Mukskaya now 
runs. This portage, defended by blockhouses, gave 
the Russians control of the upper waters of these 
streams, and with them the approaches to Lake 
Baikal. Hitherto their progress had been rapid, but 
in the neighborhood of the lake itself they met with 
stubborn resistance, nor was it before 165 1 that they 
succeeded in establishing a permanent settlement at 
Irkutsk. The Russians crossed Lake Baikal, ex- 
plored the Amur, and wandering eastward about five 
hundred miles, in 1654, fortified Nertchinsk, at the 
junction of the Nercha and the Shilka. At Nert- 

1 See itinerary given in full in Russia on Ae Pacific^ 72. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 133 

chinsk the road from Peking debouched, and they 
accordingly held the place tenaciously. They after- 
ward settled at Albazin ; but here the Chinese onset 
proved too cogent. In 1689, by the treaty of Nert- 
chinsky they abandoned Albazi and the whole valley 
of the Amur. 

The result was logical. Trade to China passed by 
Nertchinsk, but the Pacific offered no outlet. Hence 
the Muscovite economic system followed the trade 
route until resistance stopped progress at Nertchinsk. 
Having stopped, Russia lay passive until it received 
another impulsion toward Cathay. That impulsion 
came from the United States. In 1854 Perry signed 
his convention with the Mikado, which was followed 
by a full treaty of commerce in 1858. In the sum- 
mer of 1859 Moravieff explored the coast south of 
the Amur as far as Wei-hai-wei, visited Japan, and 
finally selected Vladivostok as the site of a pro- 
visional Russian capital upon the Pacific. 

When, in 1689, Peter the Great began his reign, 
the two great economic systems of the modern world, 
though yet inchoate, were rapidly consolidating. The 
revolution of 1688 in Great Britain indicated that 
the concentration of commercial exchanges at Lon- 
don had already made the mercantile class the domi- 
nant influence in the kingdom, while the incorporation 
of the Bank of England in 1694 may be regarded as 
the first step taken by the nation in its career as a 
financial power of magnitude. In 1757 Clive con- 
quered at Plassey, giving to the British the control 
of India and the plunder of Bengal. In 1 759 Wolfe 
captured Quebec, and the "Industrial Revolution," 
which, by 1801, had won for the United Kingdom 



134 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

the monopoly of western manufacturing, opened with 
the invention of the flying shuttle in 1760, and the 
gradual substitution of coal for wood in smelting. 

Thus the ocean routes between China, India, and 
America converged at the British Islands, which also, 
as a manufacturing centre, sold commodities east and 
west. No position could be stronger, provided the 
EngUsh could defend their connections and their 
bases, and provided they were not undersold by the 
transcontinental highways. A similar concentration 
took place in Russia. During Peter's reign the thor- 
oughfares from Moscow to Peking, Samarkand, and 
Teheran were established. Peter policed the Volga, 
visited the Caspian, and entered into regular diplo- 
matic correspondence with Peking, sending his embas- 
sies thither along the roads which have been followed 
ever since. A good account of Siberia at this period 
has been given by one of his ambassadors. In 1692 
Peter despatched Evert Ysbrand Ides, a Danish mer- 
chant, with " a splendid embassy on some important 
affairs, to the Great Bogdaichan, or Sovereign of the 
famous Kingdom of Katai,'' and on March 14 Ides . 
started from Moscow on a sled. He followed the 
course of the rivers, making a long detour northward 
to Vologda, then by the Suchona to the Kama, and 
so into Asia. The travelling was slow, but the expe- 
dition seems to have encountered few hardships, and 
it arrived safely at Irkutsk, which Ides thus described: 
" The suburbs are very large ; all sorts of grain, salt, 
flesh, and fish are very cheap here ; . . . beside great 
numbers of Russians have settled here, and taken up 
some hundreds of villages, all which with great in- 
dustry'and success promote agriculture." He reached 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 35 

Lake Baikal on March 10, just a year after leaving 
Moscow.^ Ides travelled to Peking by the Nertchinsk 
road. The country seems to have been safe. 

To the south and west of Moscow, as the resistance 
was greater, the parts of the system united more slowly. 
The Baltic was closed by the Swedes and the Poles, 
while Turks and Tartars intervened between the states 
grouped along the Volga and the Kama and the Black 
Sea. Passing by, for the moment, Peter's great cam- 
paigns against the Swedes, and the foundation of 
St Petersburg, the absorption of the Kirghiz opened 
the roads to Samarkand and India. 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the 
Kirghiz, divided amongst themselves and attacked 
by the Kalmucks and the Cossacks, asked to become 
Russian subjects. Peter declined, feeling, probably, 
too weak to extend his lines of communication with 
such powerful enemies on his western frontier. After 
the victory of Pultowa the Khan Abul-Khair again 
appealed to the Czar, who agreed to recognize his 
title to sovereignty provided he would protect Russian 
caravans travelling along the Syr-Daria and would 
respect the Russian territory. Following this treaty 
came the foundation of Orenburg in 1735, and thence- 
forward the Russians steadily absorbed under their 
administration the territory tributary to the main 
trade-routes of central Asia, until now their system 
approaches both Kashgar and Herat. 

Nevertheless the fundamental difficulty remains. 
The traffic has never paid the cost of maintenance 
of these extended highways, for the bulk of the more 

1 Three Year Travels from Moscow Overland to China, written by 
his Excellency Evert Ysbrants Ides, I^ndon, 1705, page 35. 



136 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

valuable merchandise passes now from the East to 
the West by sea, as it did in the days of Dandolo or 
of Elizabeth. Still, consolidation continued, for con- 
solidation was equivalent to economy. As early as 
1654 the Cossacks of the southern steppes coalesced 
with the administration at Moscow, but a long 
period of war intervened before the predatory popu- 
lation of the Crimea could be subdued. At last the 
Crimea became no better than an abode of bandits. 
The Russian colonization spread steadily down the 
highway of the Don, and in 1783 Catherine II. 
annexed the peninsula, the Turks being too weak to 
interfere. Meanwhile, the partition of Poland had 
begun ; but the fall of Sweden and Poland are bound 
up with some of the most momentous incidents of 
modern European history ; amongst others with the 
rise of the German Empire. 

Perhaps, relatively to the civilization in which it 
flourished, the Hanseatic League was the most power- 
ful and pervasive monopoly which ever existed ; nor, 
so long as commerce followed the Elbe and the Rhine 
from Venice, could its position be shaken. The cor- 
poration, based on the guilds of the different towns, 
was an association of capitalists spreading over 
Germany, and controlling transportation between 
domestic markets and foreign ports. Therefore out- 
lying countries drawing their supplies from the 
North Sea and the Baltic were at the mercy of the 
Hanse, which acquired a power over them always 
considerable, and sometimes absolute. In London 
during some centuries the Merchants of the Steel- 
yard were influential; at Novgorod the Germans 
were autocratic, and in Sweden they may be said to 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 137 

have formed the ruling class. Half the burgomasters 
and the counsellors of the Swedish towns were nomi- 
nated by the League. Nothing escaped them ; they 
dealt in all commodities, and speculated in most 
industries. In Russia they bought fur and wax, and 
sold spices and wines. In Sweden they sold every- 
thing which conduces to luxury and civilization, and 
took in exchange dried fish and iron. Under such 
conditions the Swedes could accumulate little. The 
Hanse merchants, as creditors, kept manufacturing 
to themselves. For example, the Germans bought 
the Swedish pig, took it to Dantzic, manufactured 
it, carried it back to Stockholm or Bergen, and sold 
it at their own price. 

It is impossible to conjecture how long the League 
would have retained its monopoly had trade followed 
its old routes. It fell, like Venice, with the discovery 
of the ocean passage to India. When undersold by 
the shipping of the west, it lost vitality, and one 
after another its vassals liberated themselves. Gus- 
tavus Vasa emancipated Sweden. 

Gustavus gained the throne partly through the 
aid of Liibeck, therefore he did not begin reforms 
before he knew that he could safely discard his ally. 
Of much ability, Gustavus saw the advantage his 
country would reap by the overthrow of the Hanse, 
and by degrees projected measures of relief. The 
Hanse resisted, by plotting treason ; the king retali- 
ated, hostilities ensued, Gustavus prevailed, and the 
treaty of Hamburg, in 1533, reduced the corporation 
to impotence. Once free, Sweden soon earned wealth 
and glory. Gustavus, needing skilled labor to develop 
the iron, prohibited the export of pig to Dantzic, thus 



138 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

throwing the workmen, whom the Hanse had there 
collected, out of employment. Many of these emi- 
grated to Scandinavia, and by 1611, when Gustavus 
Adolphus succeeded his father Charles IX., Sweden 
had gone far. Under Gustavus Adolphus the 
peninsula reached its full development Gustavus 
followed the policy of his predecessors, and his 
khigdom became a leading industrial community.^ 
The effect was immediate and unmistakable. 

Drawing energy from her minerals, the nation 
fought the Thirty Years' War, and won for Gustavus 
Adolphus his victories. These victories shattered 
mediaeval Germany, but no campaigns, however brill- 
iant, would have built up the kingdom of Prussia, 
had the world in 1650 been centralized as in 1200. 

The founding of Irkutsk was contemporaneous with 
the expansion of Brandenburg under the treaty of 
Westphalia, because it was through the opening up 
of Russia and Siberia that the region tributary to 
Berlin received the impulsion which caused it to 
consolidate. It was this core which in a little over 
two centuries developed into the modem German 
Empire. 

The surplus production of eastern Europe and 
Asia, from Lake Baikal on the east to the Oxus on 
the south, sought more and more eagerly the paths of 
least resistance to Amsterdam and London. Some 
passed thither by Trebizond, and some by the ports 
of Livonia, but perhaps the more valuable portion 
went by river and by road to the German markets in 
the valley of the Elbe, and from thence to Hamburg. 

Like all processes of nature, the construction of 

"^Die GeschichU des Eisens, Beck, II., 900, 1 291. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 139 

modern Russia and Germany has been in accordance 
with fixed laws. When the dominant market sought 
the North Sea, and, in consequence, the lines of 
communication in central Russia began to consoli- 
date, the cost of administration increased, and it 
became a question of life and death to the Muscovite 
organism to obtain direct relations with its customers. 
At Novgorod the Hanse occupied somewhat such 
a position as the Arabs held at Cairo ; having a 
monopoly, they raised the price of all their sales, and 
depressed the price of all their purchases. Russia was 
poor and suffered intensely. It tried war. On Novem- 
ber 5, 1494, Ivan III. seized the warehouses at Nov- 
gorod, threw the merchants into prison, and carried 
away their goods. But this did not end the difficulty. 
Somewhat later the Baltic ports, but especially Reval, 
Dorpat, and Narva, resorted to trade combinations to 
enhance prices. As a result the Russians sent their 
more valuable products direct to Poland, and from 
Poland to Leipsic. The chief of these products was 
fur. In 1549 the representative of Riga at Liibeck 
stated that Novgorod's fur trade had been diverted 
to Leipsic, and that it passed thither by way of Littau, 
Cracow, and Posen.^ 

Another important export of Russia was leather, 
made in the Ukraine. This leather, shipped by way of 
Breslau, was exchanged for Unen and manufactures, 

1 " In dieser Beziehung machten die Vertreter Rigas — 1549> 1554 — 
geltend, der einstmals zu Nowgorod bltthende Handel mit Pelzwerk 
gehe jetzt durch die Hande der Littauer, Krakauer, Posener und an- 
derer hauptsachlich auf Leipzig und werde schwerlich wieder nach 
dem Contor gelenkt werden konnen," — Berichte und Akten der Hans- 
ischen Gesandtschaft nach Moskau im Jahre i6oj. Otto Blamcke, IV. 



I40 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

the whole trade centring in Germany. So large and 
so lucrative was the business that Russian leather, in 
Peter the Great's time, cost less in Breslau than in 
St. Petersburg. 

It was this commerce which made the fortune of 
Leipsic. Ivan sacked Novgorod in 1494, and in 
1497 and 1507 the Emperor Maximilian confirmed 
the charters which gave Leipsic her most important 
privileges, the town becoming forthwith the chief 
market of the world for furs. Both Leipsic and Ber- 
lin belong to the Elbe system of waterways, and thus 
enjoy cheap access to the sea. The roads from 
Moscow, Warsaw, St. Petersburg, and Breslau all con- 
verge at Berlin, where they unite in a single line to 
Hamburg. But Hamburg has always been an advan- 
tageous port for Russia, because, in the Middle Ages, 
by trans-shipping at Liibeck and Hamburg, merchants 
avoided the tolls as well as the dangers of the Sound ; 
and, in later times, because by travelling overland to 
Berlin they escaped the exactions of the Livonian 
cities, and often the custom-houses. Smuggling on the 
Berlin route was practised on a large scale. In 1707, 
when Charles XII. was meditating an invasion of Rus- 
sia, a panic seized on Moscow and the ** great foreign 
merchants and capitalists hastened to go to Hamburg 
with their families and property, while the mechanics 
and artisans went into their service." ^ Such persons 
would certainly have travelled by the safest and best- 
established route. 

Therefore Leipsic and Berlin prospered in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, because they 
became centres for the overland trade flowing from 

1 Peier the Greaty Eugene Schuyler, 2, 76. 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 14 1 

the East toward Amsterdam and London, and during 
the last century Berlin has been even more power- 
fully stimulated by the development of the Polish 
and Silesian minerals. 

Prussia and Russia grew simultaneously, as parts 
of a single whole, and the Seven Years' War, in 
which Frederick extended his dominions south to the 
borders of Galicia, along the frontier of Poland, was 
only the supplement to the campaigns of Peter, in 
which he dismembered Sweden. At the close of the 
Thirty Years' War Sweden not only held most of 
the eastern coast of the Baltic, but Pomerania and 
other German provinces. Sweden then enjoyed 
preeminence. The Swedish soldiers were the most 
renowned, the Swedish statesmen the most respected, 
the Swedish industries the most active. Russia, on 
the contrary, still wallowed in barbarism. Yet the 
Swedes instinctively felt insecure and tried to destroy 
their enemy. Most nations have obeyed these intui- 
tions and have fought their bloodiest battles on some 
apparently trifling pretext, yet, as men have after- 
ward perceived, in anticipation of an approaching 
catastrophe. Few have resigned themselves to sink 
without a blow. 

The mind of Charles XII. of Sweden is now usu- 
ally deemed to have been unbalanced, but his con- 
temporaries thought differently. Johnson said that 
at his name Europe grew pale. France and England 
both sought his alliance, but Charles cared not for 
them. His whole soul was fixed upon the east ; his 
one idea to strike at Moscow. And men believed he 
would succeed. He himself, in 1707, expected within 
a year to dictate peace from the Kremlin. Nor did 



142 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

his calculations seem unreasonable. According to 
Napoleon, he commanded 80,000 superb troops, and in 
his first campaign in 1708 he defeated the Russians on 
the Beresina and at Smolensk. Master of Poland and 
Riga, and only ten days' march from Moscow, Peter 
lost courage, and sent Charles propositions of peace. 
Charles rejected the overture, but, instead of advanc- 
ing at once on Moscow, turned toward the south with 
the expectation of forming a junction with the Cos- 
sacks under Mazeppa, and wintered in the Ukraine. 
Napoleon has condemned his tactics, and on such a 
matter Napoleon's opinion must be final, but prob- 
ably nothing could have availed him. In these great 
movements the genius of a general can seldom afFect 
the final result. The forces at work are too cogent. 
In this war, as in 18 12, the longer hostilities lasted, 
the more the defence gained upon the attack. The 
inference is obvious. 

When Charles took the field in the spring of 1709, 
he commanded only about 24,000 men, and with 
these he invested Pultowa. Peter, on the other 
hand, concentrated some 60,000 for the relief of the 
place, and it is noteworthy that while the Swedes 
lost in effectiveness as well as in number, because of 
the hardships they endured, the Russians gained in 
both. Charles, notwithstanding the disparity of 
force, attacked. He met a repulse, and when the 
enemy took the oflfensive his army broke, and was 
either captured or destroyed. In his joy Peter ex- 
claimed, likening Charles to Phaethon, "The son of 
the morning has fallen from heaven; the founda- 
tions of St. Petersburg now stand firm." 

Pultowa was decisive. Thereafter Germany and 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 143 

Rusfiia divided the heritage of Sweden. It is impos- 
sible to follow the policy of Peter in detail, but his main 
conception has been well summed up by Rambaud 
in his History of Russia: "Peter always dreamed of 
making Russia the centre of communications between 
Asia and Europe. He had conquered the shores 
of the Baltic, but he had, to indemnify himself for 
the loss of the Azov, to open at least one of the east- 
em seas. Persia, mistress of the Caspian, was then a 
prey to anarchy, under an incapable prince whom 
rebels assailed on all sides. Some Russian mer- 
chants had been plundered. Peter seized the pre- 
text to occupy Derbent, and took command himself 
of an expedition which descended the Volga from 
Nijni to Astrakhan. After his departure operations 
continued, the Russians took Bakou.'' ^ So, consist- 
ently, Peter's first work at St. Petersburg was to 
connect the Neva with the Volga, by the canal of 
Ladoga, and he planned also to unite the White Sea 
with the Gulf of Finland, and the Black with the 
Caspian by a canal between the Volga and the Don. 

As an effect of more rapid communications Rus- 
sian society received an energetic impulsion. Suc- 
cess in competition depends on rapidity and economy 
of movement, and all barbaric civilization is costly 
because of defective administration, which engenders 
waste. Peter's reforms tended to suppress waste 
and to augment speed. His improvement of trade- 
routes illustrates the latter proposition; one or two 
examples will illustrate the former. 

Every barbarous country pays its civil servants by 
fees charged to the individual who requires a service, 

1 HUtaire de la RussU^ Rambaud, 411. 



144 '^^^ ^^^ EMPIRE CHAP. 

as elsewhere lawyers and doctors are paid. The 
conception of general taxation for fixed salaries is 
very advanced. Yet the exaction of fees by officials 
occasions loss and delay. The ancient Czars pro- 
nounced this formula when making an appointment, 
" Live oflF your place and satisfy yourself/* Peter 
was stern toward peculation. He tortured and killed 
many officials who had peculated, banished others, 
beheaded several governors, and one great dignitary 
he compelled to produce his books, and convicted 
him, by his own accounts, of being robbed by his 
intendant and of himself robbing the state. Peter 
flogged him with his own hands, and sent him "to 
settle his own reckoning with his intendant." The 
military administration was wasteful, among other 
reasons, because the officers starved the recruits and 
stole the money allowed for food. The consequence 
was a large mortality. Peter offered the estate of 
any official convicted of such practices to whoever 
would give proof of guilt. He was soon over- 
whelmed with anonymous letters making all kinds of 
unsubstantiated charges, and this plan had to be 
abandoned. On the whole he accomplished little or 
nothing, for the salaries paid the civil servants were 
inadequate to their support. Peter also pursued the 
policy of his predecessors and encouraged the immi- 
gration of skilled labor, whether industrial or agri- 
cultural. The newcomers indeed could not mix with 
the natives, yet they may have increased intellectual 
flexibility in some degree. 

Thus although in the eighteenth century the move- 
ment of Russia lagged behind the movement of the 
West, it had become rapid compared with the stag- 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 145 

nation which prevailed when Jenkinson lived, and its 
eflfect may be measured on the steady lengthening 
out of Brandenburg, which was the continuation of its 
main trade-route. 

At the accession of Ivan the Terrible Brandenburg 
was, what it had been since the thirteenth century, a 
somewhat compact block of territory lying across the 
Oder and the Elbe. When Ivan came to the throne 
in 1533, the overland trade, for the more costly goods, 
from Moscow to the Elbe was established, and it went 
on increasing and stimulating the region through 
which it passed. Ivan died in 1584, and already the 
old era approached its end. The Thirty Years' War 
which established a new equilibrium was at hand. 
The war broke out in 161 8, and in 1620 Frederick 
William, the Great Elector, was born. This man 
laid the foundation of Prussian ascendency, and he 
did so logically by stretching out along his trade- 
routes toward Moscow on the one side, and toward 
the metals of the Rhine on the other. By the treaty 
of Westphalia, which closed the Thirty Years' War in 
1648, Frederick obtained Lower Pomerania, which 
carried his territory nearly to the Vistula. Subse- 
quently he conquered Upper Pomerania from the 
Swedes, but was forced to surrender it. Most note- 
worthy of all, in 1666, he obtained in the Rhine 
country the Duchy of Cleves and the counties of 
Mark and Ravensburg. Mark was then the very 
heart of the Rhenish iron industry, the three chief 
manufacturing towns being Liidenscheid, Altena, and 
Iserlohn.^ 

Peter the Great's victory over Charles led to an 

1 Die Gesckichte des Eisens^ Beck, II., 1 174. 



146 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

expansion of Russia toward the west, and this expan- 
sion was followed by the Seven Years' War, in which 
Frederick seized Silesia, causing a corresponding 
Prussian expansion toward the east A generation 
later the two great systems, steadily gravitating 
toward each other, divided Poland, and their frontiers 
met. In the attack on the overland system by Napo- 
leon, Prussia, when conquered by France, freed her- 
self through the defeat of Bonaparte in Russia. 

Since then the same process has continued. A 
glance at a modem railway map will show the base 
on which the German Empire now rests. It is the 
old Brandenburg and Elbe system continued to the 
minerals of Westphalia. The lines of traffic rim east 
and west from the Rhine to Moscow. They centre 
in Berlin, and have their outlet at Hamburg. The 
chief of these lines are those from Frankfort and 
Cologne to Berlin, and from Berlin to St. Petersburg, 
Warsaw, and Breslau. South Germany has never 
yet been thoroughly amalgamated with Prussia, be- 
cause their trade-routes do not exactly converge. 
Now, as in the Middle Ages, the lines north and 
south naturally pass through Leipsic and Cologne 
rather than Berlin, with the exception of that to the 
Erzgebirge, which is in the Elbe valley. 

After the wars of Peter and of Frederick the Great, 
Poland lay like a wedge between the two great wings 
of the overland system. Poland had been created by 
the same conditions which had created the Hanseatic 
League, and as long as commerce flowed from south 
to north, both organisms retained their vitality. In 
the Middle Ages, much of the Hungarian traffic 
passed from the Danube at Buda to the upper 



IV. THE NEW EMPIRE 147 

Vistula at Cracow, and thence floated down to Dant- 
zic and the Baltic. Thus the Fuggers sent their 
copper to Antwerp. Accordingly Cracow developed 
into the chief local market, and as such became the 
capital of Poland. In 1320 Ladislaus made it the 
royal residence, in 1364 Casimir III. founded its 
famous university, and during the sixteenth century 
the city reached its highest prosperity contempo- 
raneously with the prosperity of Augsburg and the 
Fuggers. In the seventeenth century the decline 
began, just at the dawn of Berlin's fortune. In 
1609 the court moved down the Vistula to Warsaw, 
which lies at the point where the river approaches 
Moscow nearest, on the line between Moscow, Smo- 
lensk, Berlin, and Leipsic. Cracow then decayed 
fast, and in 1734 had fallen so low that it had ceased 
to be used even as the royal burial-place. The 
migration of the capital of a country is demon- 
stration of a displacement of trade-routes and of 
energy. 

Therefore the evidence shows that, by the time of 
the death of Peter the Great, the direction of the 
circulation of eastern and central Europe had changed 
from the north and south arteries, to the east and 
west, and with this change the cause which had cre- 
ated Poland vanished. Accordingly the kingdom 
dissolved, a portion of it gravitating toward the sys- 
tem of the Danube, and the remainder dividing 
between the two powerful organisms which admin- 
istered the transcontinental highways. The first 
partition of Poland occurred in 1775, the last in 
1795. Such an unification of interests by cheapen- 
ing communications^ sharpened competition at the 



148 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. nr. 

termini, and one of its effects was to make the posi- 
tion of France untenable. 

During the third quarter of the eighteenth century 
France fell into isolation. Ejected from Canada and 
India, she could play no part in the maritime ex- 
changes which centred in London ; while she lay 
beyond the zone of the Russian thoroughfares, which 
converged at Berlin and ended at Hamburg. From 
the close of the administration of Colbert France de- 
clined apace. Under her antique organization she 
competed at a loss, until a chronic deficit became insol- 
vency. Then, nerving herself for a supreme effort, 
she simplified her methods of administration, and 
struck at her rivals. 



CHAPTER V 

When the explorations of Vasco da Gama caused 
the migration of the dominant market from Italy to 
the Atlantic coast of Europe, a struggle began, be- 
tween Spain, France, Holland, and England, for the 
control of the ocean routes to India. Spain suc- 
cumbed early, Holland had not the bulk to contend 
successfully, and France and England were thus 
left, toward the close of the eighteenth century, to 
fight out the battle alone. 

The disadvantages under which France labored 
from her position at the extremity of a long peninsula, 
isolated from her neighbors because of her converg- 
ing waterways, and yet exposed to their attack, has 
been described ; but certain peculiarities of the Gallic 
temperament also operated strongly against her. 
Most of the modem Latin races seem to have inher- 
ited, in more or less degree, the rigidity of the Roman 
mind. The Spaniards have always been tenacious 
of their traditions, and the French have found social 
innovation so difficult, that they have preferred to 
try to crush competitors by arms, rather than to 
undersell them by economics which would necessi- 
tate changes in local customs. The Romans dis- 
played the same instinct throughout their history. 
Beck, in his History of Iron, has given an interesting 
example of how injuriously conservatism affected 

149 



150 THE NEW EMHRE chap. 

manufacturing: "This patriotic dogfmatism, which is 
peculiar to the French, seriously influenced the 
development of their iron industry in the eighteenth 
century. ... It stood in the way of a progressive 
development, since the hostility to England prevented 
the French from recognizing without prejudice the 
superiority of the English in the domain of forging, 
so that the greatest improvements, especially in the 
use of coal, gained entrance into France much more 
slowly than into Germany." ^ 

When Spain sank, England did not rise very 
rapidly. Holland profited more immediately by the 
sack of Antwerp. From the opening of the seven- 
teenth century the maritime provinces fattened upon 
the war with Spain; they captured the Moluccas, 
robbed American galleons, and even blockaded Lis- 
bon and Cadiz. At length Spain could endure the 
drain no longer, and in 1609 Philip III. recognized 
the independence of the Dutch. Forthwith Amster- 
dam became the leading port of Europe, and the 
Bank of Amsterdam the most powerful financial 
corporation in the world. From 16 10 onward 
Amsterdam throve, while France almost contempo- 
raneously, under Richelieu, entered upon a period of 
centralization, which ended in 1653 with the collapse 
of the Fronde. Mazarin died in 1661. Louis XIV. 
then began his active life, and France soon saw her 
gpreatest epoch. Never before or since has France so 
nearly succeeded in establishing a supremacy over 
Europe, as in the third quarter of the seventeenth 
century. Louis XIV. was the first potentate of his 
age ; his army the largest and the best organized, his 

^ Die GeschUhU des Eisens, Ludwig Beck, III., 997, 99S. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 151 

generals the most renowned; his navy, though not 
perhaps the most numerous, yielded to none in qual- 
ity; his court was the most magnificent, and his 
capital the most materially and intellectually brilliant. 
All the world admired and imitated Paris. On the 
one hand, Moli^re, Racine, La Fontaine, Bossuet, 
F6nelon, and many others raised letters and science 
to an unrivalled eminence; on the other, Versailles 
ruled absolutely in fashion. As Macaulay has ob- 
served, the authority of France " was supreme in all 
matters of good breeding, from a duel to a minuet 
She determined how a gentleman's coat must be cut, 
how long his peruke must be; whether his heels 
must be high or low, and whether the lace on his hat 
must be broad or narrow. In literature she gave 
law to the world. The fame of her great writers 
filled Europe." 

Nevertheless, brilliant as had been her success 
elsewhere, in one department France betrayed weak- 
ness. The French people were innately conservative. 
While centuries of war, accentuated by foreign con- 
quest, had finally consolidated the nation in a military 
mass which could be marshalled by a single will, in 
habits of life and methods of business the ancient 
provinces remained nearly as foreign to each other 
as they had been during the Middle Ages. They 
declined to amalgamate, and though the king occasion- 
ally exercised an arbitrary power in matters of police, 
in financial administration he was nearly helpless. 
The inferiority of France, relatively to her neighbors, 
lay chiefly in the cost of domestic communication, 
which, because of converging rivers, should have 
been cheap. Colbert proposed to abolish all internal 



152 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

tariflFs. Pierre Clement, Colbert's biographer, has thus 
described the obstructions which then prevailed : — 

"The provinces called the 'five great farms' as- 
sented. Others who refused, because of their per- 
sistence in isolating themselves, were designated 
under the name of 'foreign provinces.' Lastly, they 
gave the name of 'provinces reputed foreign' to 
a final category. The districts comprised in this 
category were, in reality, completely assimilated to 
foreign countries, with which they traded freely with- 
out paying any duties. For the same reason, the 
merchandise they sent into other portions of the 
kingdom was considered as coming from abroad, 
and that which they bought paid, on entering their 
territory, the same duty as if brought from abroad." ^ 

Trade languished, for the tariff of Languedoc had 
no more relation to that of Provence than either had 
to that of Spain ; and even the provincial tariffs were 
trifling beside the rates and tolls of towns and bar- 
onies. Thirty dues were collected between Lyons 
and Aries, and manufacturers of Lyons complained 
bitterly of the rigor of the taxes of Valence. A bale 
of silk, they said, paid three times before it could be 
used. Merchants protested that the city closed the 
river. Nevertheless, in spite of conservatism, no 
people has ever better loved lucre than the French, 
and this yearning for wealth became incarnate in the 
great minister of finance of Louis XIV. 

Jean Baptiste Colbert, the son of a draper of 
Rheims, was born in 1619, in humble circumstances. 
Little is known of his youth, but at twenty he took 
service as a clerk in the War Department, and in 

^ Histoire de Colbert^ Qement, I., 291, 292. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 153 

1651 he passed into the employment of Mazarin. 
There he prospered, and in 1659 had risen high 
enough to dream of destroying Fouquet. 

The farming of the direct taxes formed, perhaps, 
the most noxious part of a decapng system, and it 
was in the collection and disbursement of taxes that 
Fouquet ran riot Louis himself afterward averred 
that the " way in which receipts and expenses were 
handled passed belief." Subject to little or no 
supervision, Fouquet appropriated vast sums. His 
famous palace of Vaux, Voltaire asserted, cost 
18,000,000 livres, and all agreed that it outshone St.- 
Germain or Fontainebleau. France dreamed of 
becoming the centre of European industries, and 
Colbert conceived his mission to be the realization of 
this dream. To attain his end, he proposed to build 
up manufactures by bounties and grants of privi- 
leges; but he also comprehended that to make 
industries profitable he must reduce waste. Under 
Louis XIV. Fouquet embodied the principle of waste ; 
therefore Colbert attacked Fouquet, and rose upon 
his ruin. When, however, Colbert had attained to 
power, he paused. He improved methods of account- 
ing, but, raised to an eminence, he saw that existing 
customs went to the root of contemporary life, and 
that the reorganization of the administration meant 
the reorganization of society, or, in other words, a 
revolution. Yet he could not stand still and maintain 
himself. 

International competition cannot be permanently 
sustained on a great scale by bounties ; for bounties 
mean producing at a loss. Bounties may be useful 
as a weapon of attack, but they cannot, in the long 



154 THE NEW EMPIRE chap, 

run, bring in money from abroad ; for they simply 
transfer the property of one citizen to another by 
means of a tax. One nation can gain from another 
only by cheaper production. If a certain process 
is dearer than another, the assumption of a portion 
of the cost by the state cannot make the transaction 
profitable to the community at large, though it may 
to the recipient of the grant. The Continental sugar 
bounties, for example, have doubtless been successful 
in enfeebling England by ruining her colonies, and 
they have also enriched the makers of beet sugar; 
but they have never, probably, been lucrative to 
France or Germany. 

Like any other corporation, a nation can live 
beyond its means as long as its own savings last, or 
as long as it can borrow the savings of others ; and 
now accumulations are so large that a country, like 
Russia, can maintain itself long on credit. In the 
seventeenth century accumulations were compara- 
tively slender, and Colbert came quickly to the 
parting of the ways. He understood that to simplify 
the internal organization of the kingdom sufficiently 
to put it upon a footing of competitive equality with 
Holland or England would involve the reconstruction 
of society ; yet to continue manufacturing on the ex- 
isting basis, which entailed a loss, could only be made 
possible by means of loans, for the people were 
sinking under taxation. Colbert judged that he 
could not borrow safely upon the necessary scale ; 
and thus the minister, very early in his career, found 
himself forced to make the choice which, under such 
conditions, must always, sooner or later, be made, 
between insolvency, revolution, and war. If left 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 155 

undisturbed, the mechanism which operates cheapest 
will in the end supplant all others ; and this funda- 
mental truth Colbert learned. In three years after 
he had entered upon his task he had broken down. 
In 1664 he formulated a scheme, part of which was a 
liberal tariff, and part the simplification of internal 
fiscal usages. He dared not press his reform, and, 
as waste continued, his whole policy fell, and with it 
fell his industrial system. The cost of production 
remained higher in France than in Holland, therefore 
commercial exchanges went against the kingdom; 
and in 1667, to correct exchanges and prevent a 
drain of specie, Colbert resorted to a prohibitive 
tariflf, or, in the words of his biographer, tried the 
experiment of " selling without bu)dng." 

This course struck at the fountain of Dutch life. 
Holland being the distributing centre of Europe, her 
prosperity depended on keeping open the avenues of 
trade. If she allowed foreign countries to be closed 
against her, while her market remained free, she 
might be suffocated by the bounty-fed exports of 
France. Germany has recently suffocated the West 
Indies by identical methods. The Dutch understood 
the situation perfectly, and Van Beuningen, the 
ambassador of the Provinces in Paris, thus explained 
his views in a letter to John de Witt, "Since the 
French exclude all the manufactures of the United 
Provinces, means must be found, as complaints are 
useless, to prevent them from filling the country 
with theirs, and thus draw from us our quick 
capital." 

As a financier Colbert constitutionally disliked war, 
more especially as war was not his trade, and, if 



156 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

successful, would redound more to his rival, Louvois's, 
glory than to his own. Without any question Colbert 
would have kept peace could he have done so and 
sustained the industrial system, with which his for- 
tunes were bound up. For these reasons some of 
Colbert's partisans have maintained that he always 
deprecated the Dutch campaign. He certainly 
pondered the crisis long and anxiously, for it involved 
his tenure of office, as well as the destiny of France ; 
but a perusal of his correspondence can leave no 
open mind in doubt in which direction he found the 
path of least resistance. The published documents 
abundantly justify Pierre Clement's conclusion, that 
" this time, at least, the only one perhaps, [Colbert 
and Louvois] worked with an equal ardor to attain a 
common end."^ Colbert discussed the situation in 
all its bearings, and dilated upon his disappointments 
and mortifications. In 1669 he lamented the stagna- 
tion of French commerce. He estimated that, out of 
the 20,000 ships doing the traffic of the world, the 
Dutch owned 15,000 or 16,000, and the French 500 or 
600 at most. The final blow, which is said to have 
almost broken his heart, fell in 1670, when, just as 
the French East India Company admitted itself to be 
practically insolvent, the Dutch Company divided 
forty per cent. From that moment Colbert recog- 
nized peaceful competition as impossible, and nerved 
himself for war. In May, 1672, Turenne crossed the 
frontier at the head of a great army, and the cam- 
paign opened which is the point of departure for all 
subsequent European history down to Waterloo. 
Nor was the action of Colbert exceptional. On the 

'^HiUoire de Colbert^ a^ment, I., 303. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 57 

contrary, he obeyed a natural law. Every animal, 
when cornered, will fight, and every nation always 
has fought and always will fight when war oflFers the 
path of least resistance. Competition is a choice of 
weapons. The French chose arms, and in this case 
they were justified by the apparent probabilities of a 
conflict. 

Considered as a means of competition, war must 
be regarded as a speculation ; a hazardous one, it is 
true, but one to be tried, where the chance of gain 
outweighs the risk of loss. To Colbert it seemed, in 
1672, that he risked little, and might win much. 

His deadliest enemy lay before him, rich and 
defenceless. There could be no doubt as to the 
value of the spoil, should Louis prevail. Amsterdam 
was opulent As late as the time of Adam Smith, 
the Bank of Amsterdam held the position occupied 
by the Bank of England during the last century, 
while the commerce of the country exceeded that of 
all the other nations combined. Furthermore, if 
Holland was rich, she was peaceful. The navy still 
retained some degree of energy, but the army was 
both small and of poor quality. The urban popula- 
tion of the Provinces had not won credit in battle, 
even during the revolt against Spain, and in the 
years which had intervened since Alva's victories it 
was believed to have deteriorated. Lastly, the Dutch 
were divided ; the Orange and De Witt factions hat- 
ing each other as bitterly as they hated Louis. 

Conversely, France stood as a military unit. The 
king's will met with no opposition. Louvois's ad- 
ministration far surpassed anything then existing. 
Throughout the army the officers were excellent, and 



158 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Turenne and Cond^ had no rivals as leaders in the 
field. The whole force of the community could be 
utilized, for the peasants could be drafted into the 
ranks, and the nobles served from choice. The odds 
were very great, and Colbert counted them as a man 
of business. Colbert understood perfectly that he 
was playing for high stakes, but he thought the dice 
were loaded, and, under the circumstances, felt justi- 
fied in taking the risk. The country was in a dilemma. 
Much money had been invested in commerce and 
industry. These were undersold by the Dutch, and 
as matters stood the investment would be lost. Could 
Holland be crushed, competition would cease, and 
not only would the capital already embarked be 
safe, but it would be advantageous to employ more. 
Social reform had been tried and failed. 

Against these manifold advantages was to be reck- 
oned the outlay for hostilities ; for Colbert, probably, 
never contemplated the possibility of ultimate defeat 
The expense promised to be light. The soldiers 
all thought that a few weeks, or at most months, 
would put Holland in the hands of the French. At 
first, indeed, it seemed that no serious resistance 
would be attempted. The Dutch troops fled or sur- 
rendered; the towns opened their gates. In June 
the French threatened Amsterdam. Scandal even 
asserted that nothing saved the city but Louvois's 
jealousy, who feared that an immediate peace might 
exalt Colbert too far. Colbert, on his side, felt the 
victory won, and in those days of triumph laid bare 
the recesses of his heart. In a memorandum sub- 
mitted to the king he explained the use to be made 
of victory. The paper may be read in Colberts 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 159 

Letters and Memoirs}- Its ferocity is convincing. 
In substance he proposed to confiscate the best of 
the Dutch commerce, and to exclude the Dutch from 
the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, France was van- 
quished. In July William of Orange became stadt- 
holder, opened the dikes, and laid the country under 
water. Six years later Colbert purchased peace, not 
only by the surrender of the tariff on which he had 
staked his hopes, but by accepting a provision in the 
treaty of Nimwegen, stipulating that in future fre^ 
dom of commerce between the two countries should 
not be abridged. 

Thus Colbert failed in his speculation, and hav- 
ing failed, like any unsuccessful speculator, he fell. 
Louvois succeeded him, as he had succeeded Fouquet ; 
but the preponderance of Louvois meant the triumph 
of conservatism, and the postponement of social 
changes in favor of war. In 1672 France lacked 
the flexibility to shed an obsolete system, and suffered 
accordingly. She succumbed because of administra- 
tive waste. Had she been able in 1672 to effect some 
portion of the simplification which occurred between 
1793 and 179s, London might not have become the 
imperial . market during the nineteenth century. 
Under Louis XIV. France broke down through 
waste. With cheap administration she might not 
have needed war to enable her to compete ; but if 
war had come, her economic endurance would have 
exceeded the endurance of Holland. Holland ab- 
sorbed, resistance by the rest of Europe would have 
been diflScult. No Dutch stadtholder could have 
been crowned in England, and no coalition would 

^ LeUres et Memoir es de Colbert^ Qement, II., 658. 



l6o THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

have been formed such as that afterward cemented 
by William of Orange. William's league survived 
him, and lasted for twenty-five years. It proved 
profitable. It crushed France and humbled Louis, 
who, old and broken, sued for peace after the disas- 
ters of Blenheim and Malplaquet Two years sub- 
sequent to the treaty of Utrecht Louis died, and 
under his successor the kingdom plunged onward 
toward its doom. At last the monarchy fell, not 
because it was cruel or oppressive, but because it 
represented, in the main, a mass of mediaeval usages 
which had hardened into a shell, incompatible with 
the exigencies of modem life. Under it, a social 
movement of equal velocity to that which prevailed 
elsewhere could not be maintained. What French- 
men craved in 1789 was not an ideal called "lib- 
erty," consisting of certain political conventions, but 
an administrative system which would put them 
on an economic equality with their neighbors. De 
Tocqueville perceived this forty-five years ago: 
"Something worthy of remark is that, among all 
the ideas and sentiments which have prepared the 
Revolution, the idea and the taste for public liberty, 
properly so called, presented themselves the last, as 
they were the first to disappear." ^ 

One hundred and forty-three years separated the 
Dutch War from Waterloo, nearly half of which were 
filled with desperate fighting. On the whole, France 
steadily lost ground; her defective administration 
weighed too heavily. Evicted from Canada and India, 
she tended more and more toward commercial eccen- 
tricity, while England, by the development of her 

^ VAncien Regime ei la Revolution^ yth ed., p. 333. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE l6l 

minerals, distanced her industrially. So far as peace- 
ful competition went, France stood relatively less 
advantageously toward the United Kingdom, after 
the readjustment which ended in the empire, than 
she had toward Holland in 1667, even under the 
inequalities of the old monarchy. Napoleon judged 
the situation much like Colbert, only, being a soldier, 
he felt no repugnance to the remedy. He proposed 
to displace the seat of international exchanges by 
making London costly as a market, very much as 
Philip had made Antwerp costly in the sixteenth 
century. To accomplish this end, three methods of 
procedure lay open to him. They were of varying 
degrees of complexity; he tried them in order, the 
simplest first. 

Napoleon saw that, if he could destroy the British 
navy, he might invade the islands directly, or isolate 
them by cutting thdir communications with America 
or India, or both. Failing in a naval battle, he 
might close the Continent to English trade, and by 
stopping sales cause insolvency. After insolvency he 
counted on surrender. Lastly, he nourished the idea 
of marching on India overland and conquering the 
British base. As a sea victory would be the most ef- 
fective and cheapest, he risked Trafalgar. His defeat 
fell on October 21, 1805, and instantly he addressed 
himself to maturing new combinations. Perhaps no 
great captain ever conceived plans at once so stupen- 
dous, so logical, and so chimerical. Yet he acted 
with incomparable energy and fixity of purpose. 

As he wrote to Joseph, "I have 150,000 men in 
Germany. I can with that subdue Vienna, Berlin, St. 
Petersburg." On September 26, 1806, the emperor set 

M 



1 62 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

forth on the Jena campaign. On October 14 he fought 
Jena, on October 27 his army entered Berlin, and on 
November 21 he issued the celebrated Berlin decree. 
By this decree he declared the British islands under 
blockade, prohibited intercourse with them, con- 
demned, as prize of war, merchandise coming from 
them, and excluded neutral shipping, cleared from the 
United Kingdom or her colonies, from the ports of his 
dominions. Napoleon issued this decree in anticipa- 
tion of the Friedland campaign, for he understood 
that, with Russia independent, it must be inoperative. 
Merchandise landed on the coast of the Baltic would 
always leak across the border into Germany by land. 
Therefore Russia must be dominated. On February 
8, 1807, he fought the bloody battle of Eylau, and 
failed, but on June 14 he triumphed at Friedland, 
and Alexander capitulated. By the secret treaty 
signed at Tilsit, the Czar promised to " make common 
cause with France " against England, should England, 
after a specified time, decline Napoleon's terms of 
peace. 

Looking back at this great struggle for supremacy 
from the distance of a century, it appears to have 
proceeded from premise to conclusion with the pre- 
cision of a mathematical demonstration. Placed at 
the extremity of the European peninsula, and prac- 
tically isolated, France and England fought for the 
ocean trade-routes east and west, because the ocean 
routes were the cheapest. England being in posses- 
sion, and after Trafalgar and Copenhagen unassailable 
by sea, Napoleon had to control the rival system, or 
the overland routes to India, in order to cut the 
communications of his rival. He had no alternative. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 163 

To succeed, he could either occupy Moscow himself, 
or reduce the Czar to a point where he would serve 
as his agent. Nor was this all. Napoleon considered 
the problem in all its bearings, and worked it out in 
its minutest details. India was his objective point, 
but he perceived that it would make no diflference 
to Russia whether France or England held the 
peninsula ; competition between the land and water 
routes would continue, and Russia would be inimical 
to the victor. In fine, he foresaw the inevitable 
jealousy which afterward disturbed the relations of 
Great Britain and Russia. 

The emperor judged that cordial relations could 
not long continue between himself and Alexander, 
even should he confine his advance on Hindustan to 
the sea ; but he knew full well that if the French 
should occupy central Asia, they would stab Russian 
society in its vitals. This measure Napoleon seri- 
ously contemplated. In 1807 he sent General Gar- 
dane to Persia on a topographical mission to report 
on the military routes, and he even made a treaty 
with the Shah of Persia in which this paragraph 
occurred, " If his Majesty the Emperor of the French 
should decide to send an army by land to attack the 
EngUsh possessions in India, his Majesty the Em- 
peror of Persia, as a good and faithful ally, will allow 
him passage through his territory." ^ 

For these reasons Napoleon refused all material 
concessions to Russia, whether such concessions 
touched the partition of Turkey or the fate of the 

^ Mission du Gineral Gardane en Perse sous le premier empire^ 
Alfred de Gardane; and see also, on this whole subject, Napoleon et 
Alexandre /., Vandal, I., Chap. VI. 



1 64 "THE NEW EMnRE chap. 

Duchy of Warsaw. At the same time he vigorously 
urged Alexander to renounce communication, direct 
or indirect, with Great Britain. No one knew better 
than Bonaparte the strain to which he exposed the 
Russian organism, nor did it displease him that it 
should be intense. If bankruptcy supervened and 
disintegration followed, France would be the gamer, 
for Napoleon assumed a rupture with Petersburg to 
be inevitable should England hold out, and the Mus- 
covite empire retain its vitality. In either event, 
a wasting of the Russian energy would make his 
task easier, supposing him pushed to the last ex- 
tremity; and he calculated on being ready to meet 
the emergency at the end of the two years which 
he allowed for the pacification of Spain. 

The ordinarily patient Slavs, goaded beyond en- 
durance, broke out into fierce denunciation of the 
Czar. The conversation in the society of St. Peters- 
burg was regularly reported at Paris, and General 
Savary wrote bluntly what he thought: "The em- 
peror and his minister, the Count Roumanzoff, are 
the only true friends of France in Russia ; this is a 
truth which it would be dangerous to conceal. The 
nation would be ready to take up arms, and make 
new sacrifices for a war against us." In 1810 the 
break came. Alexander professed willingness to 
fulfil the letter of his agreement at Tilsit, and ex- 
clude British ships, but he declined to exclude 
American. The English, however, could sell to 
Americans, and Americans to Russians, and if ex- 
changes could thus be effected between Great Britain 
and the continent, through the medium of neutrals, 
the attack on the maritime system collapsed. As 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 165 

Napoleon said, in that war "there could be no 
neutrals." In September Champagny wrote to Cau- 
laincourt that ships of all nationalities, chiefly Amer- 
ican, sailed over the Baltic by hundreds and by 
thousands, " like the debris of a routed army." This 
great fleet Bonaparte commanded Alexander to con- 
fiscate, being resolved, in case of disobedience, to 
use force. He wrote : " My Brother : . . . Six hun- 
dred English ships wandering in the Baltic, and 
which have been excluded from Mecklenburg in Prus- 
sia, are bound for your Majesty's dominions. ... It 
depends on your Majesty to have peace, or to pro- 
long the war. Peace is and ought to be your desire. 
Your Majesty is certain that we shall obtain it if you 
confiscate these six hundred ships and their cargoes. 
Whatever papers they have . . . your Majesty may 
be sure that they are English." The result is thus 
described by Henry Adams in his History of the 
United States : — 

"The Czar, pressed beyond endurance, at last 
turned upon Napoleon with an act of defiance that 
startled and delighted Russia. December i [1810], 
Roumanzoff communicated to Caulaincourt the Czar's 
refusal to seize, confiscate, or shut his ports against 
colonial produce. At about the same time the mer- 
chants of St. Petersburg framed a memorial to the 
imperial council, asking for a general prohibition 
of French luxuries as the only means of preventing 
the drain of specie and the further depreciation of 
the paper currency. On this memorial a hot debate 
occurred in the imperial council. Roumanzoff op- 
posed the measure as tending to a quarrel with 
France ; and when overruled, he insisted on entering 



1 66 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

his formal protest on the journal. The Czar acqui- 
esced in the majority's decision, and December 19, 
the imperial ukase appeared, admitting American 
produce on terms remarkably liberal, but striking a 
violent blow at the industries of France." Napoleon 
replied, " Your Majesty is wholly disposed, as soon 
as circumstances permit it, to make an arrangement 
with England, which is the same thing as to kindle 
a war between the two empires." ^ 

In 18 12 Napoleon, driven onward by the inexorable 
logic of competition, marched on Moscow to seize the 
converging point of the roads between the interior 
and the Baltic ; and in his campaign met destruction. 
It could not have been otherwise, because of the 
geographical position of France. France, being 
isolated and belonging to neither the maritime nor the 
overland system, in order to obtain for herself the 
wealth which falls to the dominant market, attacked 
Great Britain. To prevail France had to cut her 
adversaries' communications, and, failing to do so on 
the sea, she attempted the task on land. This in- 
volved war with Russia and the whole overland 
interest, and thus, with the world allied against her, 
France fell. 

Alexander the Great had no such difficulty to face. 
His problem admitted of solution. In Alexander's 
time the avenues east and west converged within the 
narrow space between the Bosphorus and Suez. 
Alexander held the Bosphorus. He had therefore 
only to march to Suez to cut all connections. After 
one decisive action, in which he forced the passes into 
Cilicia, Alexander drove the enemy before him, and 

1 History of the United States of America^ Henry Adams, V., 41S. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 167 

SO superior was his force that his operations amounted 
to little more than clearing and garrisoning the roads. 
He had no anxiety for his rear, and the war paid for 
itself, as the traffic on the thoroughfares he seized 
was the most valuable in the world. Lastly, as trade- 
routes converged) they could be consolidated under 
one administration, at a reasonable cost, and a stable 
equilibrium thus attained. The Roman Empire was 
the natural successor of the Alexandrine, and under 
Rome peace prevailed for several centuries, substan- 
tially unbroken. Napoleon failed because he at- 
tempted to consolidate various diverging systems. 

On Napoleon's fall Great Britain was left in a com- 
manding position. Without a rival on the sea, she 
decisively undersold her overland competitor, while 
her minerals gave her an effective monopoly of 
manufacturing. For upward of a half a century she 
enjoyed these unparalleled advantages, and it was 
during this period that she amassed the wealth which 
made her the banker of the world. Instead of being 
drained of her bullion, as ancient Italy had been, 
England sold cottons to India, and instead of having 
to buy grain from Sicily and Egypt, like Rome, her 
own agriculture, down to 1845, nearly sufficed for her 
wants. No such favorable conditions had perhaps 
ever existed, and an eqtulibrium so stable would have 
apparently defied attack, had not the EngKsh them- 
selves invented the locomotive. 

Given effective land transportation, the continent 
of North America seems devised by nature to be the 
converging point of the cheapest routes between Asia 
and Europe. Lying midway between the two conti- 
nents, which are divided from each other either by 



l68 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

vast expanses of water, or by almost impassable 
deserts and mountains, the United States stretches 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is penetrated by 
navigable rivers and lakes, and is not broken by dif- 
ficult mountain ranges. Even better, it possesses 
almost all the more important minerals. Nevertheless, 
until the railway had been perfected these advantages 
were neutralized by the cost of carriage, and the 
United States could never have competed with Great 
Britain had waterways retained the preeminence they 
held prior to 1850. 

Even a generation ago competition remained much 
upon the basis of the eighteenth century. Although 
tending to shrink, the margin of profit stayed broad 
enough to spare the individual trader, and distance 
afforded Europe a defence against the attack of more 
favored communities. America did not harass France 
or Germany. On the contrary, America offered them 
the best market for their surplus, the United States 
buying manufactures with bullion, raw materials, or 
food, and freight acting as a protective tariff in favor 
of European farmers. The case of the United King- 
dom will illustrate an universal condition. 

As late as i860 a marked disparity existed between 
England and the United States. While England's 
exports of manufactures then reached <^ 13,000,000, 
those of the Union only slightly exceeded ^^40,000,000 ; 
and while in i860 Great Britain had substantially 
completed her railroad system, that of the United 
States lay in embryo. Thirty thousand miles of road 
were then in operation; 200,000 are now in use, 
and even in 1900, 3500 more were added. The 
United Kingdom, in 1899, possessed altogether 21,700 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 169 

miles, and building has long gone on at the rate of a 
hundred miles or so a year. The burden of construc- 
tion on the two communities can be measured. In 
i860, with the facilities then existing, neither iron, nor 
coal, nor grain, nor meat could be exported from 
America in competition with the product of British 
mines or farms ; while, on her side, Great Britain 
could sell her manufactures in the United States 
almost at her own price. Thirty years ago, land 
rates of transportation did not approximate sea rates; 
therefore, iron, for instance, could not be brought 
from the interior to the ports. England had in com- 
parison no land carriage. Her resources lay on the 
coast. Furthermore, a chief source of British prosper- 
ity was agriculture. The manufacturing population 
grew apace; eating much, yet producing no food. 
Nevertheless they paid for food liberally, because the 
revenue from America provided ample wages. Thus 
passing from hand to hand, the landlords finally 
pocketed the larger share of American remittances, 
in the shape of rent. The gentry consequently 
throve, habitually saved a part of their incomes, and 
invested what they saved either in business paper or 
in foreign securities. Agriculture thus formed the 
comer-stone of the economic system of Europe dur- 
ing the decades which ended with the Franco-German 
War. 

Bagehot wrote Lombard Street between 1870 and 
1873, and in the introduction to that interesting essay 
he inserted a passage which has made luminous many 
subsequent phenomena. Commenting on the loan- 
able funds always lying on deposit in London, 
Bagehot observed: — 



I/O THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

" There are whole districts in England which can- 
not and do not employ their own money. No purely 
agricultural county does so. The savings of a county 
with good land but no manufactures and no trade 
much exceed what can be safely lent in the county. 
These savings are . . . sent to London. . . . The 
money thus sent up from the accumulating districts 
is employed in discounting the bills of the industrial 
districts. Deposits are made with the bankers . . . 
in Lombard Street by the bankers of such counties as 
Somersetshire and Hampshire, and those . . . bank- 
ers employ them in the discount of bills from York- 
shire and Lancashire." ^ 

Almost as Bagehot wrote these words the economic 
equilibrium of the world began to shift. The move- 
ment started in central Europe. The consolidation 
of Germany between 1866 and 1870 overthrew 
France, and transferred to Berlin a large treasure, in 
the shape of a war indemnity. Besides entering on 
a period of mining and industrial expansion, the Ger- 
man Empire, by means of this treasure, restricted its 
coinage to gold. Silver, being discarded, depreciated 
until, in 1873, France also curtailed her silver coinage, 
and thus very soon silver bullion cut a poor figure 
as an asset. But to appreciate the catastrophe which 
followed it is necessary to go back to 1848, when the 
United States first succeeded in putting any consid- 
erable value of metal upon the international market, 
and observe the creation of her foreign debt 

Prior to 1848, not only had the United States been 
a poor country, but she had not prospered extraor- 
dinarily. She had contended with overwhelming 

"^ Lombard Street^ y^, 12. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 71 

difficulties. Her mass outweighed her energy and 
her capital. Confronted with immense distances, 
and hindered from comprehensive methods of trans- 
portation by poverty, she could not compete with a 
narrow and indented peninsula like Europe. The 
change wrought in these conditions by the influx of 
gold was magical. 

In the three years 1 800-1 802 the imports averaged, $93,000,000 
In the three years 1 848-1 850 the imports averaged, 154,000,000 
In the three years 1 858-1 860 the imports averaged, 316,000,000 

That is to say, there was an increase of 66 per cent 
in half a century, and of over 100 per cent in a 
decade. 

Exports during 1 800-1 802 averaged .... $78,000,000 
Exports during 1848-18 50 averaged .... 140,000,000 
Exports during 1858-1860 averaged .... 299,000,000 

A ratio of growth of 80 per cent in fifty years, as 
against upwards of 100 per cent in ten. 

Iron was equally remarkable. In 1847 ^^^ exports 
of iron and steel stood at $929,000; in 1858 they had 
quintupled, reaching 1(^4,884,000; while the authori- 
ties hold that the modem era of iron-making opened 
in 1855. But, perhaps, the most impressive of these 
phenomena was the accumulation of capital. In 
1848 the total deposits in the savings banks amounted 
to $33,087,488, an average per capita of |! 1.5 2. In 
i860 they reached $149,277,504, an average per 
capita of $4.75. This corresponds pretty well with 
the growth in purchasing power consequent on the 
yield of the mines. Between 1792 and 1847, the an- 
nual production of gold and silver had been less than 



172 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

J500,cxx); in 1848 it passed jio,o(X),ooo, and in 1850 
$50,000,000. 

As America was organized in 1848, all bulky com- 
modities lying in the interior, away from navigable 
waterways, were iipavailable, but gold and silver, 
being portable, could be shipped abroad and sold. 
They were sold, and from their sale came both cap- 
ital and credit. A satisfactory railroad system 
was thereafter attainable. The United States real- 
ized her opportunity and strained her means to the 
uttermost. The debt contracted between i860 and 
1893 cannot be computed, but its magnitude may be 
conceived from the fact that 35,000 miles of railway 
having been built up to 1865, 142,000 miles more 
were added between 1865 and 1893, that during the 
decade preceding 1893 construction had exceeded 
6000 miles annually, and that in 1894 the total lia- 
bilities of the roads reached j 11,000,000,000. And 
this huge debt constituted only a portion of the mort- 
gage on the future, which the nation had contracted 
to obtain internal improvements and to defray the 
waste of war. Such figures convey little impression 
to the mind. Perhaps it may aid the imagination to 
say that Mr. Giffen estimated the cost to France of 
the war of 1870, including the indemnity and Alsace 
and Lorraine, at less than $3,500,000,060. 

When America's creditors rejected her silver, in 
1873, she had to settle in such commodities as they 
would take, and the chief of these were farm prod- 
ucts. A general fall of prices set in, as marked in 
freight rates as in commodities. This shrinkage 
affected values abroad, and the worse the position 
of the creditor class became, the more peremptory 
grew their demands for payment. 



y. THE NEW EMPIRE 173 

The structure of society had not been simplified in 
Great Britain, during the French Revolution, as it 
had on the continent. Consequently, in 1870, much 
of the complexity of the Middle Ages survived, espe- 
cially in regard to the tenure of land. In England 
land was expected to earn two profits, one for the 
cultivator, the other for the landlord; and though 
this had been possible when freights were high, it 
became impossible as they fell, accompanied as the 
fall in freights was by a decrease in the value of the 
crops themselves. 

In 1873 it cost, on the average, about J!o.2i to con- 
vey a bushel of wheat from New York to Liverpool, 
in 1880 only about $0,115; or, estimating the value 
of the bushel of wheat in London between 1870 and 
1874 at $1.60, and allowing for the reduction in rail- 
way as well as in ocean rates, the farmer lost some- 
thing at least equivalent to a protective tariff of 10 
per cent. This difference seems toward 1880 to 
have about offset the rent. At a later date matters 
grew worse and farms went out of cultivation. 

Then a very curious phenomenon occurred. In 
earlier days the manufactures of Great Britain had 
been sold in America; the proceeds had been re- 
mitted to Lancashire or Yorkshire, had for the most 
part been spent in wages, and by the wage-earner 
had been expended for food; the sale of food had 
paid the gentry's rent, and the gentry's accumulations 
had either returned to Lancashire as loans, or had 
been invested in American stocks. Such was the con- 
dition when Bagehot wrote Lombard Street, What 
happened in the next two decades a few figures will 
explain better than much argument. For example. 



1/4 '^^^ I^W EMHRE CHAP. 

the acreage under wheat in England, Scotland, and 
Wales fell from 3,49o,ocx) acres in 1873 to 1,897,000 
in 1893, while imports of wheat rose from 43,863,000 
hundredweight in 1873 to 65,461,000 in 1893. Mean- 
while, the population of the United Kingdom had 
only grown from 32,000,000 to 38,000,000. In other 
words, the imports of wheat had increased 50 per 
cent, the population 20 per cent ; and this leaves out 
purchases of flour, which had swelled from 6,000,000 
to 20,000,000 hundredweight 

The course of trade is obvious enough. The profits 
made on sales of merchandise abroad, and paid out 
in wages, no longer remained with English farmers 
as the price of food, thus forming a basis for English 
credit. After 1879, as soon as earned, these profits 
flowed back again whence they came, with the effect 
of gradually converting the landholding class from 
lenders into borrowers. 

The landed class became borrowers largely because 
of the extravagant system of family settlements. The 
eldest son took the property, but he took it encum- 
bered with settlements for the widow, the brothers 
and sisters. These settlements constituted a fixed 
charge on rent ; and when rents disappeared, the owner 
had to make good the settlements, or pay the interest 
on his mortgages, which amounted to the same thing, 
out of sales of personal property. Hence, liquidation 
on a large scale became imperative ; and frequently 
it proved impracticable to save the land. Neverthe- 
less, though undersold in agriculture, Great Britain, 
with economy and an improved administration, might 
have prospered, if she could have maintained her 
advantage in transportation; but in this emergency 
British society proved inflexible. 



V. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 75 

Meanwhile America tottered on the brink of ruin. 
Deprived at once of her silver, which then represented 
a cash asset of upward of ]^35,ocx),ooo annually, and 
of much of the value of her other merchandise, the 
United States had to meet the deficiency with gold. 
In the single year 1893, the Union exported, on 
balance, J>87,ooo,cxx), a sum probably larger than 
any community has been forced to part with under 
similar conditions. Such a pressure could not con- 
tinue. The crisis had to end in either insolvency or 
relief, and relief came through an exertion of energy 
and adaptability, perhaps without a parallel. The 
United States escaped disaster because of intellectual 
flexibility. 

In three years America reorganized her whole 
social system by a process of consolidation, the result 
of which has been the so-called trust. But the trust, 
in reality, is the highest type of administrative effi- 
ciency, and therefore of economy, which has, as yet, 
been attained. By means of this consolidation the 
American people were enabled to utilize their mines 
to the full ; the centres of mineral production and of 
exchanges were forced westward, and the well-known 
symptoms supervened. The peculiarity of the pres- 
ent movement is its rapidity and intensity, and this 
appears to be due to the amount of energy developed 
in the United States, in proportion to the energy 
developed elsewhere. The shock of the impact of 
the new power seems overwhelming. 

From the age of Augustus downward Europe's 
vulnerable point has been her minerals; but all 
experience has demonstrated that the centre of 
mineral production is likely, also, to be the seat of 



176 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. v. 

empire. At all events, no region can long retain 
an ascendency without an adequate supply of the 
useful metals and coal. Also, in international com- 
petition, to be undersold is equivalent to being with- 
out mines, for unprofitable mines close, or else are 
protected by a tariflf which raises the cost of life 
above the international standard. The condition of 
the United Kingdom may, perhaps be taken as a 
gauge of the condition of the chief industrial nations 
of the continent. 

As early as 1882, the iron mines of the United 
Kingdom yielded their maximum, in round numbers, 
i8,ooo,ocx) tons of ore; in 1900, only i4,ooo,cxx). 
In 1868, 9817 tons of copper were produced; in 
1899, 637 tons. Two years later the turn came in 
lead, the output in 1870 having reached 73,420 tons, 
as against 23,552 in 1899; while tin, which stood at 
io,9Cx:) tons in 1871, had dwindled to 4013 in the 
same year. The quantity of coal raised, indeed, 
increases, but prices have shown a tendency to 
advance as the mines sink deeper, so that any con- 
siderable industrial expansion is likely to occasion 
a rise in the cost of fuel. The end seems only a 
question of time. England, France, Germany, 
Belgium, and Austria, the core of Europe, are, 
apparently, doomed not only to buy their raw mate- 
rial abroad, but to pay the cost of transport 



CHAPTER VI 

In March, 1897, America completed her reor- 
ganization, for in that month the consolidation at 
Pittsburg undersold the world in steel, and forthwith 
the signs of distress multiplied. The Spanish Em- 
pire disintegrated, and Great Britain betrayed a 
lassitude which has attracted the attention of the 
entire world. One symptom has been the financial 
weakness discovered during the petty Boer War. 
To maintain their credit and their bank balance, the 
Statist computed that London financiers regularly 
employed, during the summer of 1901, 8o,ooo,cxx) 
pounds sterling of French capital, and Lombard 
Street freely admitted that French bankers held the 
money market in their grasp. A notable feature of 
modem English civilization is the apparently meagre 
accumulation of popular savings. The loans needed 
for the Boer War were not excessive, yet they were 
negotiated with the utmost timidity, the government 
relying upon the aid of foreign bankers. In France, 
in the midst of defeat and revolution, the peasants 
sent carloads of five-franc pieces to Paris to pay the 
indemnity in 1870. In the United States a loan of 
ji,0(X),cxx),ooo would, probably, be taken readily by 
popular subscription, and would hardly cause a very 
material fluctuation in the price of bonds if the opera- 
tions were not hurried. Between 1900 and 1902 the 
mere rumor of a new issue of consols, however small 
N 177 



1/8 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

the amount, regularly created weakness. The actual 
depreciation approximated twenty per cent. 

Meanwhile, the current of exchanges has run more 
and more heavily against the Kingdom, who, having 
for some years settled her balances in American 
securities, now apparently has recourse to the sale 
of such assets as her shipping to discharge upon the 
United States the burden of her floating debt. Also, 
with the loss of her vessels a considerable income 
will probably vanish, although the earnings of her 
merchant marine have, perhaps, not been so great 
as supposed, at least from foreign nations. British 
steamers habitually obtain outward cargoes of coal, 
and homeward cargoes of provisions or ore. The 
Economist has calculated that thirty per cent of the 
coal nominally exported goes to coaling stations and 
is sold to English seamen. Its price, therefore, 
becomes an item of freight to be defrayed by the 
purchaser of the goods transported, and if these 
happen to be ore or provisions, the English must 
meet it, and reckon it as dead loss. The British 
iron mines are failing, the copper mines have failed, 
therefore ores have to be imported; the British 
railways, through conservatism, have been unable to 
reduce rates, so that the farmer of Devonshire cannot 
compete with the farmer of Ontario or Nebraska; 
therefore the British have to rely on Americans, 
Australians, Russians, and Germans for food, and 
have to pay for the transportation of what they buy. 
Meanwhile the English spend on the basis of their 
old profits now that their profits are gone, and hence 
comes that enormous and ever growing adverse 
trade balance, which seems already to have devoured 



VI. THE NEW EMHRE 1 79 

the savings which once represented gigantic invest- 
ments, not only in the United States, but on the 
continent of Europe. In the six months ending 
July I, 1902, the excess of net imports over net 
exports reached ;£94,545,ooo, as against ;£89,7S3,ooo 
in the first half of last year, and j<C77,8 59,000 in the 
first half of 1900. In 1890 the adverse balance for 
six months was ;£46,400,ooo, and at that time the 
returns did not include the sale of new ships, which 
in 1900 were valued at ;£3 ,940,000, and which would, 
to a certain extent, diminish the deficit. Under such 
conditions American capital would naturally flow 
toward England, for the Statist has calculated that, 
even on the basis of the year ending March 31, 1901, 
and after every imaginable set-oflf had been allowed, 
the nation was going behind at the rate of ^£40,000,000 
per annum, or nearly $200,000,000.^ 

Germany has also been perturbed. Years ago 
Germany was organized to meet English competition, 
and while England regulated the pace, Germany paid 
a dividend on her investments. When American 
trusts entered the field this profit disappeared, and 
Germans now comprehend that, however prices may 
temporarily favor them by reason of activity in the 
United States, to be permanently secure they must 
adjust their whole system of agriculture, industry, 
and transportation to a new standard. Conceding 
this to be done, success still remains problematical, 
for Germany can never match her bulk against the 
bulk of the United States, or her mines against 
American mines. She must always buy her raw 
material. Also, Germany must face the destruction 

^ The SUUist, April 13, 1901, p. 676. 



l8o THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

of her beet sugar industry through the loss of the 
American market by the inclusion of Cuba in the 
American system. 

Russia has, however, suffered most, for Russia is 
the heart of the weaker of the two competing eco- 
nomic systems, and as such has probably contracted 
the greatest debt, in proportion to its capital, of any 
solvent community. From the nature of the case, 
Russia's trials are not new. They began with the 
rise of the Muscovite administration, and have con- 
tinued ever since. In 1588, just after the death of 
Ivan the Terrible, Giles Fletcher visited Russia, and 
thus described what he saw: "Besides the taxes, 
customes, seazures, and other publique exactions done 
upon them by the emperour, they are so racked and 
pulled by the nobles, officers, and messengers sent 
abroad by the emperour in his publique affairs, spe- 
cially in the yammes (as they call them) and thor- 
ough faire townes, that you shall have many villages 
and townes of halfe a mile and a mile long, stande all 
unhabited ; the people being fled all into other places, 
by reason of the extreame usage and exactions done 
upon them. So that in the way towards Mosko, 
betwixt Vologda and Yaruslaveley (which is two 
nineties after their reckoning, little more than an 
hundredth miles English) there are in sigt fiftie 
darieunes or villages at the least, some halfe a mile, 
some a mile long, that stand vacant and desolate 
without any inhabitant." ^ 

In Peter's reign affairs had not improved. Between 
1709 and 1725 the revenue of Russia rose from about 

"^ Of the Russe Commonwealth^ by Dr. Giles Fletcher, Hakluyt Soc. 
Publications, 61. 



VL THE NEW EMPIRE l8l 

3,ocx),ooo to a little over io,cx)0,ooo roubles, and, as 
Schuyler has pointed out, " this result could not have 
been reached without immense and oppressive taxa- 
tion." " Strahlenberg tells us that to escape the 
oppression of the tax officials, who collected the 
taxes in the times of the year worst for agriculture, 
and seized the draft horses of the peasants, at' least 
a hundred thousand men had fled to Poland, 
Lithuania, Turkey, and the Tartars. . . . Whole 
villages ran away to the frontiers or hid in the 
woods." ^ 

Either of these paragraphs might be written of 
contemporary Russia, for in Russia poverty has long 
reached its limit, famine is chronic, and it is chronic 
because it is an effect of continuing causes. Russia's 
physical conformation is such that the traffic upon her 
highways has never paid for their maintenance and 
protection. For example, the revenue of Eastern 
Siberia has of late years yielded about 6,000,000 
roubles, while the government spent 20,000,000 annu- 
ally in the territory, and such deficits have been con- 
tinuous for three centuries. The arrears have been 
made good from the food of the people, and the 
result has been hunger. 

Nor is this expenditure economically made, for 
the conditions under which Russia exists preclude 
economy. By reason of her mass, her climate, and 
the mountains and deserts of central Asia, the circula- 
tion throughout the Russian organism is relatively 
defective. But a defective social circulation is tan- 
tamount to intellectual stagnation, and intellectual 
stagnation is synonymous with primitive methods or 

* Peter ihe Greats Schuyler, II., 369. 



1 82 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

waste. For example, the communal occupancy of 
land lingers in Russia, and yet communal tenure 
represents a stage of civilization at least three hun- 
dred years younger than the American. Also it is 
wasteful, because under it the farmer can have no 
incentive to improve his property, since another must 
enjoy the fruit of his labor. Consequently Russian 
methods of farming alter little, machinery is not 
extensively used, and the English papers intimate 
that Russian competition with American grain tends 
to diminish. Industry exhibits like phenomena. 
Being intellectually sluggish, the Russians are unin- 
ventive and unadaptable, and, since the reign of Ivan 
the Terrible, they have sought to make good their 
deficiency by the importation of f oreigjners to manage 
their factories. Nothing could be more extravagant. 
One illustration will suffice ; they have of late essayed 
to build up iron and steel interests in the south. To 
tempt foreigners to immigrate they have imposed a 
high tariff, and as there is no private demand for steel, 
the government has bought the finished product at 
exorbitant prices. The money for these purchases 
has been borrowed. As the works are owned by 
foreigners, the earnings are remitted abroad, and then 
fresh loans have to be negotiated, or the furnaces 
would close. Sooner or later a pinch was inevitable, 
and for several years Russia has been struggling 
with a crisis, which is only alleviated when the Min- 
ister of Finance can obtain an advance from France, 
which enables him to invest in steel. Thus there 
is acute misery, and misery spreads nihilism and 
agrarian discontent The emigration to Siberia is 
largely caused by an effort to escape from torment 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 83 

at home. For the same cause Fletcher found the 
villages deserted in the sixteenth century, and the 
peasants fled to Poland under Peter the Great. Be- 
tween 1879 ^^^ ^885 emigration averaged about 
10,000 annually. In 1892 a bad famine began, aggra- 
vated by the rise in taxes occasioned by the cost of 
internal improvements. In 1892 itself 90,000 farm- 
ers found their position untenable, and in 1894 the 
number is said to have risen to 600,000, though so 
enormous a total suggests an error. Famine in 
Russia does not imply an absence of food; it indi- 
cates a fall in the well-being of the people. When 
crops fail, and poverty reaches a certain point, men 
starve because they cannot buy, no matter how 
cheap food may be. During these famine years 
travellers have found villages whose whole popula- 
tion was rotting from hunger typhus, in which the 
national rye bread sold for a cent and a half a 
pound.^ 

Peter the Great, having convicted one Alexis 
Nesteroff, an Ober-Fiscal, of peculation, condemned 
him to be broken alive on the wheel. Afterward, 
in his indignation, he dictated a decree punishing 
with death all officials who received gifts. General 
Yaguzhfnsky, who acted as secretary, and who 
chanced to be honest, demurred. Peter insisted ; 
then said Yaguzhfnsky, " Does your Majesty wish to 
remain alone in the empire i we all steal, some more, 
some less but more cleverly." What Yaguzhfnsky 
meant to point out was that the custom of paying the 
civil service by fees prevailed, and that to reform it 
Peter would have to change his people. And yet 

^TAroi^k Famine-siricken RusHa, Steveni, 120. 



1 84 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

the fee system entails incalculable waste, and is 
incompatible with efficiency. The history of the 
Siberian Railway displays a gangrene which eats into 
the marrow of the nation. 

The length of the entire Siberian line, including 
branches, fell short of 6000 miles. The road runs 
for the most part through an easy country, except 
perhaps for the 669 miles from Lake Baikal to Stre- 
tensk; the land cost nothing; work can be carried 
on from several points at once. In 1891 a French 
company offered to complete the task within six 
years, at an average cost of about $30,ocx) the mile.^ 
No one knows precisely what the outlay on the road 
has been, but figures have been published relating to 
some sections. The western division from Tchela- 
binsk to the Obi was estimated by the French en- 
gineers at 20,000 roubles the verst; it had already 
cost, in 1897, 53,000 roubles, and it will have to be 
substantially reconstructed before it will bear heavy 
traffic* In reality, the main division from Chelia- 
binsk to Stretensk on the Amur, where steam navir 
gation to the Pacific begins, is less than 3000 miles, 
and M. de Witte solemnly assured the world that 
this vital section should be in thorough order by 
1898, or 1899 ^^ ^^^ latest. In August, 1898, the first 
train reached Irkutsk, and the same year the portion 
from Vladivostok to the Amur was opened. Yet 
so defective was the road-bed and material in the 
spring of 1900, that, when the Chinese outbreak oc- 
curred, not only did the main artery prove unfit for 
ordinary travel, but incapable of transporting enough 

^ 40,000 roubles the verst. 

« Otk la DUtature de M. Witte conduit la Russie, E. de Cyon, 63. 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 185 

troops to guard the lines in Manchuria. As for the 
garrisons of Port Arthur and similar positions, they 
appear rather to have been sent by Suez than by 
Vladivostok. Incompetence could go no farther. 
Such is the fruit of nine years of toil, at an outlay 
estimated at more than double the price asked by 
Frenchmen, and with a product so inferior that ex- 
perts are agreed the road falls very far below even 
the European standard, a standard incapable of com- 
parison with the American. 

In the United States, between 1880 and 1890, the 
average construction exceeded 6000 miles of road 
annually, all built by private enterprise; and in 1887 
more than 12,000 miles of track were laid. Had the 
United States been under a stimulus of apprehension 
such as the Russians felt in regard to their eastern 
frontier because of the activity of Japan, the building 
of a line equal to that to the Amur could scarcely 
have occupied three years at the most 

Measuring thus Russian with American energy, 
the former could hardly hold a higher ratio than as 
one to four or five in relation to the latter. Before 
the Siberian Railway had been tested by actual ex- 
perience, many maintained that it would ultimately 
" constitute a new commercial route for rapid travel 
and for exchange of the products of East and West," ^ 
and this theory was industriously propagated by the 
French press.^ Now, less confidence is expressed. 
The Siberian road will probably be used for pas- 
sengers, but as a channel for freight it stands already 
condemned. All the conditions are unfavorable. 

^ /Russia and the Pacific^ Vladimir, 306. 

• See, for example, V Illustration, January 23, 1897, P* 55* 



1 86 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Siberia stretches over a narrow belt of several thou^ 
sand miles of arable land, bounded by ice on the 
north, and mountains and deserts on the south. 
Thus masses of material can hardly be collected by 
feeders, as in America, and it is by handling masses 
that rates are reduced. Should the rates be fixed 
artificially low by the government, the old sore is 
opened. The peasantry must pay the deficit. 

Under such limitations even an American manage- 
ment could not cope with the Suez Canal; but, 
in the future, the Russian civil service will be in 
competition with the Panama route. The probabil- 
ity is, therefore, that the trade of northeastern Asia 
will eventually flow in larger volume toward the 
West, and that all avenues to the East will decline 
in relative importance. The Russian Empire in 
Asia is an economic system based on overland 
thoroughfares leading to Europe, and the experience 
of mankind hitherto has been that, when traflSc re- 
verses its direction, empires dissolve. Japan repre- 
sents the Western influence, therefore the kernel of 
the catastrophe impending in the Orient is the strug- 
gle for survival between Russia and Japan. 

Modem Japan, like modern America, is the effect 
of the migration westward of the seat of energy and 
the centre of mineral production. That movement 
began with the Mexican War, which preceded the 
annexation of California and the discovery of gold. 
According to the official statement of the government 
of the United States, these two events led to the 
despatch of Commodore Perry to Asia to establish re- 
lations with the Mikado. " The treaty which closed 
the war of the United States with Mexico transferred 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 1 87 

to the former the territory of California. ... If the 
shortest route between eastern Asia and western 
Europe be (in this age of steam) across our conti- 
nent, then was it obvious enough that our continent 
must, in some degree at least, become a highway for 
the world. And when, soon after our acquisition of 
California, it was discovered that the harvest there 
was gold^ nothing was more natural than that such 
discovery should give additional interest to the obvi- 
ous reflections suggested by our geographical posi- 
tion. Direct trade from our western coast with Asia 
became, therefore, a familiar thought; the agency 
of steam was, of course, involved, and fuel for its 
production was indispensable. Hence arose inquiries 
for that great mineral agent of civilization, coaL 
Where was it to be obtained on the long route from 
California to Asia.^ Another inquiry presented it- 
self; with what far distant Eastern nations should 
we trade } China was in some measure opened to 
us ; but there was, beside, a terra incognita in Japan 
which, while it stimulated curiosity, held out also 
temptations which invited commercial enterprise."^ 
Perry sailed from Norfolk on November 24, 1852, 
and his squadron entered Yeddo Bay on July 8, 1853. 
Terror reigned on shore. The people of Yeddo pre- 
pared for defence. In 1623 the last Englishman 
withdrew from Hirado, and from that time until 
Perry's advent the Dutch alone had succeeded in 
preserving a foothold in Japan. Even the Dutch 
were limited to sending and receiving a single ship 
annually, and the notion that Americans would suc- 

1 Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the 
China Seas and Japans 75. 



1 88 THE NEW EMHRE chap. 

ceed where others had failed roused general derision. 
Nevertheless, Perry opened communications with the 
Shogun. 

During the Middle Ages the military class had 
risen to supreme power in Japan, and their represent- 
ative, the Shogun, or commander-in-chief, had as- 
sumed the executive functions. Therefore, when 
Perry insisted on obtaining an answer to President 
Fillmore's letter to the emperor, the responsibility 
devolved upon the Shogun. Perry did not press the 
government unduly, but sailed for China, giving 
notice that he would return in the spring to negotiate 
a treaty. As soon as he had gone, the Shogun took 
the advice of the Daimios. The Daimios almost 
unanimously opposed foreign influence, but on the 
other hand, being soldiers, they understood that the 
country could not resist an attack. Accordingly 
the Shogun and his party determined to compromise. 
They would yield enough to keep the peace, and in 
the time thus gained they would arm. Punctual to 
his promise. Perry reappeared at Yeddo on February 
13, 1854, and on March 31 signed a convention 
which, though not a complete surrender by Japan, 
opened the door to all that followed. 

Forthwith a powerful fermentation set in, schools 
of languages were frequented, foundries organized, 
and an immense activity prevailed at the treaty ports. 
Yokohama in 1890 numbered 122,000 inhabitants, 
in 1884 70,000, in 1856 it was a mere hamlet. There 
was no stemming the impulsion. Nevertheless, the 
entrance of the empire into the vortex of Western 
competition caused an economic disturbance, which 
brought on a revolution. In 1868 the Shogun fell. 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 189 

and three years later the Daimios surrendered their 
fiefs. Perhaps no community ever assimilated a new 
civilization so rapidly as did the Japanese during the 
decades which followed, and from this intellectual 
flexibility came success. Yet, as usually happens 
upon a profound disturbance of the social equilib- 
rium, the immediate effect was war. 

Nothing would here be gained by attempting to 
detail the long and complex series of events which 
nominally led to the invasion of Korea in 1894, for 
the fundamental cause was simple. It was, in fine, 
the attack of the economic system, in process of 
foQpation, upon the systems of the past. 

Competing nations seek, along the paths of least 
resistance, the means which give them an advantage 
in the struggle for survival, and among these means 
the minerals, perhaps, rank first. Tientsin, on the 
Peiho, is the port of Peking; and somewhat more 
than three hundred miles southwest of Tientsin, in 
the valley of the Hwangho, lies Tsechau, in the 
province of Shansi, which Richthofen considered as 
the centre of the richest beds of coal and iron now 
known to exist, and undeveloped, in the world. The 
position of these beds is good. Although the 
Hwangho is hardly navigable, and although it is 
uncertain whether it could be made available at rea- 
sonable cost, Tsechau is only about two hundred 
miles distant from the junction of the Grand Canal 
with the river, and Tientsin has grown up at the 
confluence of the Grand Canal and the Peiho. 
Clearly Shansi and Honan are not only accessible, 
but cheap transportation could be established between 
Tsechau and the coast. 



IQO THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

In addition, an efficient administration could 
probably introduce an industrial system modelled 
upon the American, and could control Chinese labor. 
Therefore, granting Richthofen's estimate of the 
wealth of Shansi and Honan to be correct, there is 
reason to infer that the conqueror of these provinces 
could, were he capable, presently undersell all com- 
petitors in steel. Bearing these facts in mind, the 
recent disturbances in the East assume the appear- 
ance of an orderly sequence of cause and effect 

The greatest prize of modem times is northern 
China, and the Japanese advanced by Korea because 
Korea offered the path of least resistance to their 
goal. In 1894 the Japanese did not command the 
sea, on the contrary, the Chinese fleet was numeri- 
cally their equal ; therefore a short passage for trans- 
ports to the continent was essential to success, and 
the coast of Korea is only a few hours' sail from the 
island of Hondo. Accordingly, the Japanese marched 
through Korea, and seized Port Arthur, at the ex- 
tremity of the Liaotung peninsula, which commands 
on the north the entrance to the Gulf of Petchili. 
Port Arthur having been occupied, the next move was 
upon Wei-hai-wei, in Shantung, opposite Port Arthur, 
on the south side of the strait, between Korea Bay 
and the Gulf of Petchili. That position secured, the 
Japanese could advance upon the interior at their 
convenience, for they had annihilated the Chinese 
fleet and army. The Hwangho and the Peiho empty 
into the Gulf, and a short and easy campaign would, 
probably, have made them masters of Peking, Tse- 
chau, and the whole mineral region of Shansi. 

The danger to Japan lay not in the enemy, but in 



VL THE NEW EMPIRE 191 

foreign intervention, and intervention came precisely 
because of the energy she had developed. The over- 
land system perceived that its integrity was menaced, 
for, should northern China be turned into an active 
industrial region whose commerce would flow west- 
ward, the Russian Empire in Asia could hardly en- 
dure. At best, Siberia is long and attenuated, move- 
ment therein is imperfect and its cost heavy; but 
Siberia would readily split in twain were the co- 
hesive force of a single line of ill-built railway, four 
thousand miles long to Moscow, pitted against the 
attraction of the markets of America and Japan, act- 
ing through a manufacturing community upon the 
border. 

Aware of the danger, the Japanese did not press 
their victory, but granted China easy terms, the chief 
of which were an indemnity and the cession of Port 
Arthur. Even this was too much. Russia, with her 
appendage France, and Germany, or the overland 
system, forced Japan to retire from the mainland. 
Thus the war of 1894 left behind it an unstable equi- 
librium, with society moving with portentous velocity. 
The treaty of peace was signed on May 8, 1895, and 
within two years a heavier shock than the war came 
from the West. In March, 1897, Pittsburg achieved 
supremacy in steel, and in an instant Europe felt her- 
self poised above an abyss. As though moved by a 
common impulse, Russia, Germany, and England 
precipitated themselves upon the shore of the Yellow 
Sea, grasping at the positions which had been con- 
quered by Japan, and for the same reason. These 
positions commanded Shansi. In November, 1897, 
the emperor of Germany gorged Kaiochau, a month 



192 THE NEW EMPIRE CHiLP. 

later the Czar grasped Port Arthur, and in the fol- 
lowing April the British laid hands on Wei-hai-wei. 
Nevertheless, the movement came too late, the hour 
for partition had passed. On February 15, 1898, a 
torpedo sank the Maine in Havana harbor, and on 
May I Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila 
Bay. The United States had expanded into Asia. 

Although written documents are lacking, the cir- 
cumstantial evidence points to the conclusion that, 
from near the time of the triumph of Pittsburg, an 
understanding existed between Berlin and Petersburg 
touching the division of China. Beginning with the 
German onslaught at Kaiochau, a series of measures 
were adopted which were either irrational or were 
intended to provoke an outbreak which would justify 
reprisals. In fact, the Chinese were so drastically 
used that not only did rebellion come, but it came 
prematiu-ely. Even when so much is conceded, the 
problem remains unsolved how two cabinets could 
have refused to contemplate the inevitable effects of 
their work, when every week brought abundant warn- 
ing that the people had been goaded too far. Re- 
garding the result of the policy, the facts speak for 
themselves. Certainly the Chinese now, as in the 
past, hate all foreigners, but among the foreigners 
they hate the Germans most, and accordingly the 
first victim in Peking was the Baron von Ketteler, 
the German minister. On the whole, it seems fair 
to assume that, when the weakness of China had 
been demonstrated by the campaigns of 1894, Ger- 
many and Russia determined to thrust Japan aside, 
and divide the spoil themselves. A pretext alone 
was lacking. The fall in American steel supplied 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 193 

the needed stimulus, and, feeling strong enough to 
deal with England, they saw already the northern 
provinces at their mercy. They failed in their enter- 
prise because they comprehended neither the effect 
of their own harshness nor the energy of the United 
Stgtes. 

On June 20, when the legations were beset, every 
cabinet in Europe collapsed. Not one had a policy 
or an army ready. The Russians, with their new 
railway on their hands, could not concentrate men 
enough in Manchuria to disperse wandering bandt 
of marauders and protect their works. So far as 
appears, their main line was nearly useless for prac- 
tical purposes. The Germans, with an enormous 
army ind with a murder to avenge, could not land 
a gun at Tientsin before Peking had been occupied, 
and when their force arrived it came ill-provided. 
The English, having met with a repulse in an expedi- 
tion undertaken by one of their admirals, remained 
vacillating and helpless, waiting upon the Germans. 

On the other hand, at Washington and Tokio 
statesmen developed clear views, and found the 
means of enforcing them. The two governments 
determined, cost what it might, that the integrity 
of China should be preserved. 

The President of the United States took the lead 
and led to the end. On July 3, 1900, the State De- 
partment issued the note which has since become 
famous and which laid down the principle that peace 
continued unbroken between the United States and 
China, because, China being in insurrection, the Chi- 
nese government was unable to perform its obliga- 
tions. Instead of declaring war, therefore, the 



'• 



194 "HIE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

President announced his intention of landing an 
army as an ally, and reducing Peking to obedience. 
Although insurrection still raged in the Philippines, 
a column was rapidly concentrated at Tientsin under 
a soldier certain not to hesitate. 

His orders were to march though he marched 
alone, but there was no danger of absolute isolation, 
for the Japanese were ready. The European officers 
were inclined to hesitate, but as none of the powers 
could contemplate being left behind, they had no 
option but to move with the Americans. Thus the 
United States and Japan succeeded in controlling 
the international policy. Peking was relieved, the 
legations saved, partition averted, and finally evacu- 
ation effected. The New Empire had stretched its 
arm over northern China. 

The equilibrium of the East is now unstable. Two 
economic systems confront each other, competing for 
the same prize. Each knows that defeat may be 
fatal ; neither has achieved a decided success. 

In 1894 Japan, being the more agile, took the ini- 
tiative. She fought a brilliant war, but, in the hour 
of victory, was menaced by an alliance of the whole 
opposing system, with which she could not cope. The 
United States had not then become the seat of energy, 
and had not entered on the field. 

Six years later Germany and Russia made their 
onset ; but they were far too slow. Before they could 
make ready the United States and Japan had antici- 
pated them, and, with the United States and Japan 
in possession, partition was impossible. Then all 
fell back. Russia, in a relatively torpid condition, 
lies extended in a narrow belt along the endless trade- 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 195 

route which stretches from the Gulf of Finland to 
the Pacific. Her outlets are through Vladivostok and 
Port Arthur. Between these two ports Korea enters 
like a wedge. Should Japan seize the peninsula, she 
would threaten the flanks of both lines of communi- 
cation, and the Russian position would become pre- 
carious. 

Nor can the Japanese well afford to remain passive. 
Were they to abide within their islands while their 
competitors opened the richest mineral beds of the 
world at their doors, their very existence as an inde- 
pendent people would be endangered. The Japanese 
have developed a higher order of energy than the 
Russians, and such a supposition is hardly to be en- 
tertained. Yet the only path by which Japan can 
expand is through Korea ; if she occupy Korea she 
will flank the Russian trade-routes ; and when she 
flanks the Russian trade-routes the Russian Empire 
will totter. 

Such conditions have heretofore led to well-defined 
results ; and if the future is to be judged by the past, 
a collision is impending. Should it take place, it 
would tend toward a fundamental social and political 
readjustment. 

Save as an amusement for the antiquary, history 
and economics which deal with the past without ref- 
erence to the present have no significance. Research 
for its own sake is futile. The only practical value 
which these studies can have is the light they throw 
upon the present and the future. 

The theory advanced in this volume may be con- 
densed somewhat as follows: For the purpose of 
obtaining a working hypothesis, it is assumed that 



196 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

men are evolved from their environment like other 
animals, and that their intellectual, moral, and social 
qualities may be investigated as developments from 
the struggle for life. If so, these qualities are to be 
accounted for as means of offence, or defence, as aids 
in satisfying their needs, or as survivals from the past 
which have not been discarded. In the effort to 
live each animal will use the means best fitted to 
its nature, but as external conditions are in eternal 
movement, man's destiny must largely depend on his 
flexibility. 

Food is the first necessity, but as most regions pro- 
duce food more or less abundantly, the pinch lies not 
so much in the existence of food itself, as in its dis- 
tribution. To satisfy their hunger men must not only 
be able to defend their own, but, in case of dearth, 
to rob their neighbors where they cannot buy, for 
the weaker must perish. Men who cannot fight well 
enough for these purposes, tend to fall into servitude 
where their labor is valuable, and where it is worth- 
less to be exterminated. 

Life may be destroyed as effectually by peaceful 
competition as by war. A nation which is under- 
sold may perish by famine as completely as if slaugh- 
tered by a conqueror. Therefore, men thrown into 
acute competition with rivals must have the ingenuity 
to secure an equality of equipment, else they will 
suffer ; it may be by hunger, it may be by the sword, 
but in either case the purpose of nature will be at- 
tained. Nature abhors the weak. 

For these reasons, men have striven to equip them- 
selves well for the combat, and since the end of the 
Stone Age no nation, in the more active quarters of 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 197 

the globe, has been able to do so without a supply of 
relatively cheap metal. Thus the position of the 
mines has influenced the direction of travel. To 
supply themselves with what they lack men must 
trade or rob ; and on the whole trading has been the 
cheaper. But to buy and sell there must be a market, 
which can only be reached by travel, and in travel- 
ling, as in all functions of life, men follow the 
paths .of least resistance. It is because a highway 
offers slight resistance that it is a highway. Further- 
more, the object of the inhabitants of each market 
must be to make their highways as little resistant as 
possible, that they may attract custom, and thus is 
generated an administration which supervises repairs 
and police. 

Because wayfarers meet at cross-roads, markets 
grow at cross-roads. When the territory tributary 
to a market is considerable, and the administrative 
machinery is somewhat ramified, we call the organism 
a state ; when it is vast we call it an empire. There- 
fore the state or the empire is an outgrowth of trade, 
and usually spreads along the lines of converging 
trade-routes. 

As important markets always lie at the meeting of 
several ways, and as the movement on trade-routes 
is variable, the prosperity of a market, or a nation, is 
uncertain. The travel on a trade-route is subject to 
contingencies, two of the chief being the discovery 
of an easier path, and the decay of the terminus. 
Perhaps the terminus most certain to lose its value 
is the mine. When different routes connect the same 
termini, the markets along these routes compete, and 
are sensitive to any diversion of trade. If the diver- 



198 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

sion be serious, and can be coped with by no cheaper 
means, war usually ensues, for war is one of the more 
drastic methods of economic competition. In the 
struggle for survival, it matters little how the adver- 
sary is overcome ; the object is success. The problem 
presented is purely a choice of means. War, there- 
fore, may be profitable by closing a rival route, or 
making it dangerous and costly, even if the enemy 
cannot be totally destroyed. When trade-routes 
shift, markets move and the seat of empire is dis- 
placed. This displacement we call a revolution. It 
is the most portentous of all catastrophes, usually 
involving long wars, and many thousands or millions 
of lives. Nevertheless, the dominant market of the 
world, or chief seat of empire, seldom abides very 
long in a single city; the causes which affect its 
supremacy are too complex. 

For example, mines are at once the most ephem- 
eral and the most valuable of possessions, and accord- 
ingly mines have always profoundly influenced the 
social equilibrium. As central Asia appears to have 
been the cradle of civilization, men exhausted the 
nearest mines first, and then prospected for more, 
the easiest path being by the Mediterranean and the 
ocean. The imperial market has, on the whole, only 
followed the avenue of least resistance westward 
toward the minerals. 

The character of this oscillation to and fro of the 
seat of energy may be likened to a cyclone, where 
the highest velocity is attained within the central vor- 
tex, the tendency to calm being proportionate to the 
distance from the point of disturbance. As the vor- 
tex advances, agitation becomes violent in the com- 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 199 

munities lying in the path of the movement, while in 
its wake ebullition yields to lassitude, lassitude passes 
into torpor, and torpor not infrequently ends in death. 

This theory can be applied to the history of the 
last fifty years and its soundness tested. A half- 
century ago the centre of mineral production lay, 
probably, in Great Britain. The most frequented 
trade-routes between the East and West converged 
at English ports, and Europe was the unquestioned 
seat of intellectual and physical activity, although 
the United States, lying in the path of the advance, 
was highly stimulated. Passing beyond the shore 
of the Pacific, quietude prevailed. Japan had slum- 
bered for two centuries. On June 21, 1849, the 
first Califomian gold reached Liverpool, and the 
United States entered upon her career as an interna- 
tional vendor of the metals. In 1897 she achieved 
supremacy in iron and steel. Meanwhile, if the 
theory advanced be sound, a certain series of phe- 
nomena should have occurred both in Europe and 
Asia. First, Europe should have declined in relative 
energy. 

In 1850 Russia had reached her zenith. In 1849 
she crushed Hungary, exiled Kossuth, and made 
Austria subservient to her. Within a little more 
than sixty years she had pushed her frontier 600 
miles westward toward Berlin, and 450 miles toward 
Constantinople; she had so robbed Sweden that 
what she took exceeded what she left. She inspired 
general terror, and that terror took the form of a 
coalition for attack. The coalition succeeded; for, 
since the Crimean War, Russia has steadily declined 
in relative weight in Europe. On this point the 



200 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

literature of fifty years ago is decisive. No one now 
fears Russian aggression ; no one dreams it possible 
that Europe should become Cossack, as Napoleon 
suggested at St. Helena. It will be much if 
Russia succeeds in keeping the peace, in paying her 
debts, and maintaining the integprity of her empire. 
In the late Chinese rebellion, in spite of her railway, 
and all the preparations of fifty years, she could not 
concentrate an army corps up6n her eastern frontier ; 
yet, in the Crimean War, perhaps her most brilliant 
exploit was the rout of the allied squadrons in their 
attack on the wretched and exposed hamlet of 
Petropavlof sk, in Kamchatka. 

In Germany a somewhat similar process has gone on, 
only Germany has run a more brilliant course, as the 
country is more compact. With the change in the 
direction of her trade-routes, near three centuries ago, 
Brandenburg received an impulsion. But Branden- 
burg is the nucleus of Prussia, which in turn is the 
heart of Germany. The cause being permanent, the 
effect was constant, and north Germany gathered 
energy, compared to other countries, until the final 
consolidation took place in 1870. That consolidation, 
by accelerating domestic transportation and exchanges, 
aided in the development of the German minerals, 
and, through cheap minerals, stimulated industry. 
The consequence was a steady relative advance, up 
to a period subsequent to the French war. It is to 
be noted that Russia and Germany, belonging to a 
different economic system from America and England, 
have, as yet, lost nothing through the displacement 
of their trade-routes. On the contrary, they have 
benefited by the tendency of England to fall into 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 201 

commercial excentricity, for this has encouraged di- 
rect communications between the United States and 
Bremen and Hamburg. As ocean routes have 
straightened, the German merchant marine has grown. 
Germany and Russia, therefore, have hitherto only 
been affected by a quickening of American competi- 
tion, which has reduced the prices of grain, iron, steel, 
coal, and sugar, and has raised the standard of in- 
telligence. 

Yet, admittedly, Germany occupies a critical posi- 
tion, because of her lack of minerals and her difficulty 
in expansion. Moreover, the absorption of the West 
Indies by the United States will, probably, ruin one 
of her chief investments. In the future, also, there 
looms up the question of central Asiatic exchanges, 
and the permanence of the Russian Empire. Nor 
is this all. There are indications that Germany is 
not keeping fully abreast of the movement of the age. 
For example, the young Americans of 1850, who 
wished to be mining engineers, studied in Germany, 
because the Grermans ranked first as miners. Ameri- 
cans, educated in America, are now preferred in the 
international market. The gold mines of the Trans- 
vaal are confided to American engineers. There 
is no disputing such a test. Notably also, doubts are 
growing as to the condition of the German army. 
The suspicion is abroad that, since 1870, it has not 
kept pace with modem methods, that conservatism 
has conquered the administration. Certainly the 
expedition fitted out with such elaboration for China 
did little credit to the staff. The position of Germany 
has hardly strengthened since the great quickening 
in America occurred. 



202 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

It is, however, in the west of Europe, among the 
nations affiliated with the British system, that the 
. ^ore serious symptoms are to be anticipated. Of 
France it is needless to speak. France has long 
shown indications of decay, and of late she has al- 
most retired from international competition. She still 
accumulates wealth, partly through the frugality of 
her people, partly because of certain monopolies which 
she enjoys, such as her vineyards, and partly because 
of artistic genius, which enables her to attract for- 
eigners to Paris for education, for pleasure, or for 
the purchase of luxuries. Still, the France of 1900 
has fallen far, in relative consequence, not only from 
the France of Colbert, or of Bonaparte, but from the 
France of the Crimea, of Solferino and Magenta. 

Spain has disintegrated through diversion of the 
trade-routes of the West India Islands from Europe 
to the United States. When Europe bought the Cuban 
cane, Cuba was loyal to Spain. Now America buys, 
and Cuba turns to the Union. 

Great Britain, however, is most suggestive, for the 
United Kingdom and the empire of Japan, both 
groups of islands lying on opposite sides of America, 
the one in the apparent path, the other in the wake, 
of the social cyclone, should be supplementary to 
each other. 

In 1850 England held a position which has been 
rarely equalled. The centre of the maritime system, 
she was also the chief seat of production of the use- 
ful metals, the focus of industry, and the leading 
banker of the world. Her trade was the largest and 
the most active, her domestic transportation the most 
complete, rapid, and cheap, and her intellectual ac- 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 203 

tivity the greatest, of any community then existing. 
Her political institutions were generally taken as a 
model, her inventors, such as Watt and Stevenson, 
had, within living memory, revolutionized human rela- 
tions, while Darwin was meditating his Origin of 
Species, The foundations of the Crystal Palace, in 
which the first international exhibition was held, were 
laid in Hyde Park, in September, 1850, and the Duke 
of Wellington did not die until 1852. Since Welling- 
ton, indeed. Great Britain has produced no famous 
commander, but in the Crimean War her soldiers still 
retained their ancient vigor in attack. The Charge 
of the Light Brigade will remain one of the heroic 
actions of the century. Meanwhile, in 1850, Japan, 
upon the opposite side of the globe, lay closed to for- 
eign intercourse, a torpid, mediaeval community. 

At the breath of the advancing cyclone, Japan 
awoke, suddenly stimulated into feverish activity. 
Japan's movement is typical of the age of electricity 
and steam. In one short generation she reorganized 
her government, her education, her commercial and 
industrial methods, her navy, and her army. Her 
history is known to all Christendom, it need not be 
recapitulated, a single example will suffice; and, as 
a nation usually concentrates its energy in the highest 
degree on war, perhaps the institution most emblem- 
atic of modem Japan is her army. 

Judged by any standard known to us, that army 
must rank high. The campaigns of 1894 and 1895 
niight serve as models. In a foreign, unknown, and 
difficult country, in midwinter, the troops kept the 
field ; the commissariat and the medical departments 
proved effective; the transportation of 80,000 men 



204 "^^^ ^^^^ EMPIRE CHAP. 

to Korea was managed rapidly and without loss, in 
the face of a fleet of equal power ; the men showed 
endiu-ance, patience, and courage ; the officers, skill, 
coolness, and impetuosity in attack, while the impact 
of the navy was terrific. 

Nor can it be urged that the Chinese were im- 
potent. On the contrary, the Chinese were then 
capable of a much sterner resistance than during 
the rebellion of 1900, when their troops were little 
better than a mob ; and yet, in 1900, they were able 
not only to repulse a British admiral, but to hold 
Tientsin stubbornly against the allies. The Japan- 
ese shattered the Chinese military strength in 1894. 

Among many brilliant operations, perhaps none 
was more remarkable than the storming of Phyong- 
yang. Phyongyang in Korea is a town of 20,000 
inhabitants, to the west of the Taidong River, very 
strong by nature, and very strongly fortified by the 
Chinese. The banks of the river are steep, and the 
stream winds round nearly three sides of the city. 
The city was well walled, and surrounded by re- 
doubts which had been skilfully built The fortifica- 
tions were mounted with field and mountain guns, 
and the garrison armed with magazine Mauser rifles. 
It was 1 3,000 strong. The Japanese had rather above 
14,000 men available for the assault. After the victory 
the Japanese officers admitted that they would have 
awaited reenforcements had they appreciated the 
power of the fortress. 

The main attack was on the forts to the north, but 
a feint to the south exemplifies Japanese fighting. 
The demonstration began at 4.30 a.m. The forts 
were held by the best Chinese troops, armed with 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 20$ 

Mausers. There was no cover. Nevertheless the 
Japanese carried the outworks of two of the four 
forts, and planted their flag on the ramparts. The 
Chinese then retired to their inner lines and swept 
the enemy with a furious cross-fire, who, having ex- 
hausted their ammunition, had to search the bodies 
of their dead comrades for cartridges. Finally the 
Japanese assaulted again, but, being unable to climb 
the banks on account of their height, withdrew. 
Though only a diversion, the fighting had been san- 
guinary. All the officers were killed or wounded 
in the Second and Tenth companies of the Twenty- 
first Regiment, and the Fourth company was led by 
an ensign. The commanding general was wounded. 
The object of the battle had been only to divert atten- 
tion from the main attack. On the north the assault 
on Peony Mountain was brilliantly successful, and 
the capture of the Gemmu Gate has become famous. 

The details of the storming of Peony Mountain 
are too long and intricate to be described here. 
They should be studied with a map, but the cap- 
ture of the Gemmu Gate was quick and simple, and 
has been thus related by an Englishman : — 

The Gemmu Gate was the one nearest to Peony 
Mountain. Colonel Sato tried it, after the mountain 
fell, but the Chinese held the wall so well that the 
column recoiled before the fire. As the troops fell 
back, "Lieutenant Mimura, burning with shame at 
the repulse, shouted to his men, *Who will come 
with me to open that gate.?* and at once rushed 
toward the Gemmu Gate. Harada, one of the sol- 
diers of Mimura, then said, 'Who will be the first 
on the wall ? * and flew after his officer. They ran 



206 THE NEW EMPIRE CHAP. 

SO quickly that only eleven other soldiers were able 
to join them under the wall after passing through a 
rair. of lead. Mimura and his small band of heroes 
found the gate too strong to be forced, so the lieu- 
tenant gave the order to scale the walls. The Chi- 
nese were busy firing in front, keeping the Japanese 
troops back, and never imagined that a handful of 
men would have the boldness to climb the walls like 
monkeys under their very eyes. Mimura and his 
men came upon them with such surprise that they 
were scattered in an instant. The Japanese at once 
jumped down inside the walls and rushed to the gate, 
killing three of its defenders, and dispersing the rest, 
Mimura cutting right and left with his sword.** ^ 

Compare this energy with the lassitude shown by 
Great Britain in the Boer War. The two salient char- 
acteristics of the English army were incompetence 
among the officers and feebleness among the men. 
Again and again detachments, as at Nicholson's Nee, 
surrendered under disgraceful circumstances to in- 
ferior forces of the enemy; while Gatacre*s rout at 
Stormberg, Methuen*s timidity at Kimberley, and 
Buller*s panic at Colenso are too recent to be for- 
gotten. Japanese generals behaved not thus. Jap- 
anese soldiers always display reckless courage and 
stubborn endurance. Japan, though a poor country, 
with a fleet no stronger than that of her enemy, and 
transports bought for the occasion, landed between 
80,000 and 100,000 men in a wild, difficult, and un- 
known region, in which she had no base. Japan 
carried on her operations without foreign loans, and 
yet trade flourished. In regard to soldiers, she had 
her whole male population at her call 

^TJk€ China^Japan fVar, Vladimir, 157. 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 20/ 

The United Kingdom, the supposed seat of energy, 
of capital, and of empire, engaged in a petty broil 
with 50,000 farmers, with undisputed control of the 
sea, and a fortified base adjoining the enemy's fron- 
tier, not only failed to concentrate her forces in the 
field as rapidly and effectively as the Japanese, but 
with prostrated trade had to rely on France and the 
United States for financial support, and upon her 
colonies for men. She could not fill her ranks from 
her own citizens. Mark also the content of the 
British public with their military performance. 
Throughout the war they made no serious effort to 
improve, and since the peace they exult as in an 
heroic victory. He who reads the letters of Sym- 
machus may observe the same complacency on the 
eve of the sack of Rome. Inertia pervades all Eng- 
lish society. The system of education is admittedly 
defective because controlled by the clergy, who are a 
conservative class, and yet the hold of the clergy 
upon the schools is unshaken. The relative decline 
in the purchasing power of England may be gauged 
by a single example. A generation ago the United 
Kingdom bought two-thirds of the total American 
cotton crop. She now buys less than a quarter. 

In industry the same phenomenon appears. As 
lately as 1866 she manufactured 48.7 per cent of 
the pig iron of the world. In 1901 only 19.2. Gold 
mining is, perhaps, the occupation which most excites 
the British imagination, and yet the British cannot 
work their own property. "The great mining mag- 
nates of South Africa, having the whole world before 
them to choose from, have preferred American min- 
ing engineers, and as the mining industry in South 



208 THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Africa has proved to be so marvellous a success, it is 
hardly necessary to add that the result has justified 
the selection/* ^ 

Such instances might be multiplied, but these suf- 
fice. Each man can ponder the history of the last 
fifty years, and judge for himself whether the facts 
show that Great Britain apparently lies in the wake, 
and Japan in the path, of the advancing social cyclone. 

The world seems agreed that the United States is 
Ukely to achieve, if indeed she has not already 
achieved, an economic supremacy. The vortex of 
the cyclone is near New York. No such activity 
prevails elsewhere; nowhere are' undertakings so 
gigantic, nowhere is administration so perfect; no- 
where are such masses of capital centralized in single 
hands. And as the United States becomes an im- 
perial market, she stretches out along the trade- 
routes which lead from foreign countries to her 
heart, as every empire has stretched out from the 
days of Sargon to our own. The West Indies drift 
toward us, the Republic of Mexico hardly longer has 
an independent life, and the city of Mexico is an 
American town. With the completion of the Panama 
Canal all Central America will become a part of our 
system. We have expanded into Asia, we have 
attracted the fragments of the Spanish dominions, 
and reaching out into China we have checked the 
advance of Russia and Germany, in territory which, 
until yesterday, had been supposed to be beyond our 
sphere. We are penetrating into Europe, and Great 
Britain especially is gradually assuming the position 
of a dependency, which must rely on us as the base 

1 The Statist^ July 12, 1902, pages 67, 68. 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 209 

from which she draws her food in peace, and with- 
out which she could not stand in war. 

Supposing the movement of the next fifty years 
only to equal that of the last, instead of undergoing 
a prodigious acceleration, the United States will 
outweigh any single empire, if not all empires com- 
bined. The whole world will pay her tribute. Com- 
merce will flow to her both from east and west, and 
the order which has existed from the dawn of time 
will be reversed. 

But if commerce, instead of flowing from east to 
west, as heretofore, changes its direction, trade-routes 
must be displaced, and the political organisms which 
rest upon those routes must lose their foundation. 
Russia, for example, could hardly continue to exist 
in her present form if the commerce of Siberia were 
to flow toward America instead of toward the Baltic. 
Yet if Russia should disintegrate she would dis- 
integrate because of causes so widespread and 
deep-working that they would affect Great Britain 
with equal energy; for the inference to be drawn 
from human experience is that the rise of a new 
dominant market indicates the recentralization of 
trade-routes, and with trade-routes, of empires. Such 
changes, should they occur, would clearly alter the 
whole complexion of civilization. Speculation con- 
cerning their character, or the time of their advent, 
would be futile, as history offers no precedent by 
which we can measure the effects to be anticipated 
from an alteration so radical as the reversal of the 
direction of the channel of trade. It may, however, 
be permissible to draw certain inferences regarding 
the present. 



2IO THE NEW EMPIRE chap. 

Society is now moving with intense velocity, and 
masses are gathering bulk with proportionate rapidity. 
There is some reason also to surmise that the equi- 
librium is correspondingly delicate and unstable. If 
so apparently slight a cause as a fall in prices for a 
decade has sufficed to propel the seat of empire 
across the Atlantic, an equally slight derangement 
of the administrative functions of the United States 
might force it to cross the Pacific. The metallic 
resources of China are not inferior to ours, and dis- 
tance ofifers daily less impediment to the migration 
of capital. Prudence, therefore, would dictate the 
adoption of measures to minimize the likelihood of 
sudden shocks. As Nature increases the velocity of 
movement, she augments her demands on human 
adaptability. She allowed our ancestors a century 
to become habituated to innovations which we 
must accept forthwith. Those who fail to keep the 
pace are discarded. Conversely, those who, other 
things being equal, first reach an adjustment, retain 
or improve a relative advantage. Under such cir- 
cumstances but one precaution can be taken against 
the chances of the future. That intellectual quaUty 
can be strengthened on which falls the severest strain, 
so that our descendants may be prepared to meet any 
eventuality. The young can be trained to adaptabil- 
ity. The methods are perfectly understood ; the dif- 
ficulty lies in application. Success in the future 
promises, largely, to turn on the power of rapid 
generalization, for administration is only the prac- 
tical side of generalization. It is the faculty of re- 
ducing details to an intelligent order. The masses 
generated in modern life exercise this faculty in its 
highest form. 



VI. THE NEW EMPIRE 211 

On its theoretical side generalization necessitates 
the maintenance of an open mind. It is inconsistent 
with subserviency to a priori dogmas. Nothing is 
permitted to stand as fixed, and the individual is 
trained to hold the judgment in suspense, subject to 
new evidence. Such a temper of the mind tends 
to reduce the friction of adjustment. 

If the New Empire should develop, it must be an 
enormous complex mass, to be administered only by 
means of a cheap, elastic, and simple machinery ; an 
old and clumsy mechanism must, sooner or later, 
collapse, and in sinking may involve a civilization. 
If these deductions are sound, there is but one great 
boon which the passing generation can confer upon 
its successors : it can aid them to ameliorate that ser- 
vitude to tradition which has so often retarded sub- 
mission to the inevitable until too late. 



APPENDIX 
CHAPTER I 

SECTION I 



B.C. 



Egyptian magnificence began with Sneferu^ who con- 
quered the Maghara copper mines about . . . 4000 
Cheops, his successor, built the Great Pyramid about . 3950 
Nubia conquered by Una under VI. dynasty, about . 3450 
Period of decay and movement of the capital south, 
VII. to X. d3masty, probably caused by an invasion of a 
Mesopotamian conqueror, possibly a successor of Saigon.^ 
Rise of Mesopotamia, the distributing point between the 
East and Egypt. Sargon^s empire included the copper 
mines of Cyprus, probably those of Sinai, and later, per- 
haps, northern Egypt 3850 

Contemporaneous with Sargon probable advent of 
Phoenicians in Syria and the development through them 
of the basin of the Mediterranean, Crete^s greatest pros- 
perity, toward 2400 

Utica, Cadiz, and Carthage probably began to flourish 
about this period. 
Babylonian supremacy opened with Hammurabi about 2250 
Following upon the development of the basin of the 
Mediterranean, and the extension of the market westward, 
the trade-route moved north from Babylon to the shorter 
line of travel from Bactra to the sea 7na Nineveh. 

Rise of Assyria 

Salmanassar founded Calach at the junction of the 
Great Zab and Tigris, twenty miles from Nineveh, about 1300 

1 History of EgypU Petrie, I., 120. 
213 



214 APPENDIX 



B.C. 



The Assyrians fought steadily and successfully to keep 
open the direct trade-route from Bactra to the Medi- 
terranean coast, but failed to force the passes through 
Armenia to the gold fields of Lydia and the Euxine. 
The Assyrian Empire appears to have collapsed when 
unable to check Grecian colonization in the Euxine, 
which opened a cheaper route westward. 

Tiglat-Pileser III. defeated at Van, which stopped 
Assyrian advance 735 

The eighth century was the period of the strongest 
Greek expansion eastward. 

SECTION II 

Greek expansion eastward and attack on Mesopotamian 
system. Siege of Troy about 1200 

Athenians colonized Miletus toward . . . . 1050 

Greek exploration of and trading to the Euxine prob- 
ably began forthwith, but permanent colonies were hardly 
established much before the eighth century.^ 

The Greeks established their commercial system be- 
tween the Caucasus and the Rhone, centring at Athens, 
Corinth, and Syracuse, between .... 800-600 

They probably founded Panticapaeum, Phasb, Trapesus, 
Sinope, Lampsacus from 800-700 ; Syracuse (734)9 Magna 
Grseda, and last Marseilles, about 600 

Nineveh could not withstand this competition, which 
diverted her trade ; by 650 she was in full decline, and 
fell in 606 

Babylon captured by Cyrus the Persian . . • 538 

SECTION III 

Age of Greek Splendor 

Mines of Laurium in operation in . . • 6th cent. 
Temples of Corinth and i£gina built perhaps in . 7th cent. 
About this time commercial competition between the 
Mesopotamian and Greek economic systems acquired 

^ Die HelUnen im Skyihenlande, Neumann, 344-349. 



APPENDIX 215 

B.C. 
the intensity of war. In the sixth century Lydia was 
the centre of metallic production, which reached its 
height under Croesus . . . . . . 560-546 

The Persians under Cyrus attacked and absorbed Lydia, 

and captured Crcssus 546 

The wealth thus absorbed by C3rrus enabled Darius to 
consolidate the whole Mesopotamian system in Asia. 
Babylon taken . . . . . . . 538-5 iS 

Northern India absorbed 512 

The Persians then expanded into Europe. War with 
Greece began by conquest of Imbros and Lemnos. 
Capture of Chalcedon and Byzantium .... 505 

Capture of Miletus 494 

Marathon 490 

Xerxes obeyed the impulsion which had moved Darius 
and Cyrus. The whole Mesopotamian system from the 
Indus to Spain, expanding westward, cast itself upon 
Greece. Double victory of the Greeks, over the Cartha- 
ginians in Sicily at Himera, and over the Persians at 

Salamis 480 

Platsa 479 

After the defeat of the Persians, Athens under Pericles 
reached her highest prosperity, and the silver mines of 
Laurium their greatest productiveness. 

Golden Age of Athens 

Until the competition between Athens and Corinth pre- 
cipitated the Peloponnesian War. This war began when 
Athens aided Corcyra against Corinth in . . . 433 

Destruction of Athenian military strength at Syracuse 413 

Destruction of Athenian naval strength at iEgospot- 
amos 405 

Decline of Persia so that Xenophon marched without 
resistance through the empire to Trapezus in . . . 401 

Relative decline of the productiveness of Laurium and 
of the energy of Athens throughout the 3d and 4th cent.^ 

^ Les Mints du Zaurion dans PAntiquitet Ardaillon, 150 etseq. 



2l6 APPENDIX 

B C 

SECTION IV 
Macedon 

Development of gold mines of Thrace and Macedonia. 
Philip acquired gold mines of Mt. Pangeus and founded 
Philippi 356 

Gold mines of Macedon yielded 1000 talents annually, 
tenfold the yield of Laurium under Themistocles, and 
Alexander began his march 334 

Took Tyre and cut Mesopotamian system in two . 332 

Founded Alexandria with view to ocean trade-route to 
India 332 

Marched over the central Asiatic trade-routes from 
Babylon to Bactra, to the Khyber, and to Pattala . 331-326 

Voyage of Nearchus to explore sea trade-route to 
Persian Gulf 325 

Death of Alexander 323 

It was with the treasures of Mt. Pangeus and of those 
conquered in Mesopotamia that Alexander unified his 
currency and laid the basis of the consolidation on which 
the Roman Empire rested. 

SECTION V 

Rome 

The consolidation of the ancient world was made 
possible by the mass of treasure collected at Rome by 
pillage, which provided a material for exchanges with the 
East for several centuries, and aided the development of 
Italian energy by defraying the cost of administration. 
As the mines of the basin of the iEgaeum were gradually 
exhausted during the third century, the centre of mineral 
production and of energy was drawn westward by the pro- 
fusion of the ores of Spain. The Spanish mines have 
always been famous, but it may serve to give some notion 
of the wealth Rome drew from them to say that in thirty- 
two years the Roman generals exported from the peninsula 
767,695 pounds of silver and 10,918 pounds of gold, with- 
out counting fines levied on towns. These were very 



APPENDIX 217 

B.C. 
heavy ; for example, Marcellius levied on the little town of 
Odlis a contribution of Iss^ooo, and it was thought that 
Odlis had escaped cheaply. Marcellus is said to have 
extracted from the Celtiberians $700,000. 

The flow of metal has always been from west to east, 
and this Spanish ore supplied Carthage, Sidly, and 
Magna Gra&cia. The abundance of the precious metals 
at Carthage seems almost incredible; but the splendor 
and copiousness of the coinage of Sicily and Magna 
Graecia are fads beyond dispute. 

Before the Punic Wars no market of the ancient world 
equalled Carthage. Even after Zama (202 B.C.) Polybius 
called the city the richest in existence, yet it had then 
paid to Rome, in 241 B.C. 3200 talents (about $3,700,000), 
in 238 B.C. 1200 talents, in 202 B.C. 10,000 talents (about 
$11,600,000), and Sdpio carried away 123,000 pounds of 
silver. The Temple of the Sun was sheathed with plates 
of gold worth 1000 talents, or about $1,200,000. The 
highest point ever reached in numismatic art was the 
Syracusan Persephone, by EYAINE, weight 660.9 grs., 
struck under Dionysius 1 406-367 

Syracusan coinage, however, showed little decline until 
the Second Punic War. Two of the most exquisite pieces 
ever struck are of Hiero II. and his wife Philistis . 270-216 

The coinage of all Magna Graeda was beautifid and 
copious. 

The wealth of Tarentum was so great as to be pro- 
verbial, and Rome laid the basis of her fortune by the 
capture of the city 272 

With the plunder of Tarentum Rome changed her 
coinage from copper to silver 269 

With the wealth thus obtained Rome was enabled to 
conduct the First Punic War, and build the fleet with 
which she routed Carthage. 

First Punic War 264-241 

Plunder of Agrigentum 262 

Ships first built by Romans and great naval victory 
won by the consul Duilius over the Carthaginians at 
Mylae 260 



2l8 APPENDIX 

B.C. 

Second Punic War 21S-201 

Conquest of Spain by Rome .*•••. 207 
Zama • • • 202 

Third Punic War 149-146 

Plunder of Carthage and Corinth . . . 146 

Between the sack of Tarentum (272) and the crossing of 
the Rubicon by Csesar (49), Rome plundered the whole 
civilized world from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, and as 
£aur north as the English Channel. The treasure amassed 
at Rome in the time of Caesar was enormous. In 47 gold 
stood to silver only as i : 8.9, a cheaper rate than it ever 
held before or after. This amassing of metal at Rome 
gave Italy an immense purchasing power, provided her 
with an universal commodity of exchange, and caused all 
trade-routes to centre at Rome as the imperial market. 
With the formation of the Empire, however, plundering 
stopped, and Rome had neither manu£aictures, agriculture, 
nor commerce, apart from the traffic caused by her pur- 
chases whereby to balance her importations from abroad. 
The Romans, moreover, were wasteful and extravagant, 
and bought lavishly from the East of both luxuries and 
food. Rome|therefore soon began to impair her capital. 
Under Augustus gold had risen in relation to silver to the A.D. 
ratio of i : 9.3 .......... i 

Thenceforward the depletion of the supply of metal 
which formed the capital and the only exchangeable com- 
modity of Rome may be followed by the debasement of 
the coinage. The silver denarius, worth about seven- 
teen cents, retained its weight and purity from the First 

Punic War (264 B.C.) until Nero 54-68 

Under Nero it fell from ^ to ^ of a pound of silver. 
Alloy t\y copper. The alloy reached | under Trajan . 98-1 17 
The alloy reached ^ under Septimius Severus . 193-21 1 
The denarius had become wholly base metal and was 
repudiated under Elagabalus . . . . , 218-222 

The golden aureus passed through like phases. Under 
Augustus the aureus weighed ^ of a pound, under Dio- 
cletian^ 284 



APPENDIX 219 

A.D. 

When Rome had thus been stripped of metal, she lost 
her purchasing power and ceased to be the dominant 
market. Trade no longer centred there, and under Dio- 
cletian the capital of the Empire receded to Nicomedia on 
the Propontis, where Diocletian conducted the adminis- 
tration until his abdication 305 

With the exhaustion of the metals traffic ceased to pay 
for the police of the western highways, and the barbarians 
accordingly crossed the border unopposed • . . 376 

Rome was sacked by Alaric, who led bands of merce- 
naries who had mutinied for pay 410 

There being no cohesive energy left, the western con- 
solidation dissolved into its elements .... 476 

The utter exhaustion of Europe in the sixth century 
and later in regard to minerals can be measured by its 
coinage. This fell for several centuries into complete 
degradation.^ 

There was a corresponding decline in movement and 
energy. Charlemagne attempted a reform, but it proved 
ephemeral. This is shown by the depreciation of the 
Venetian denaro, subsequent to Charlemagne^s death in . 814 

The Venetian denaro was 0.900 pure sDver and weighed 
34 Venetian grains in 814 

The denaro had &llen to 0.260 pure silver and weighed 
but 22 grains by * 970 

With the discovery of the Rammelsberg mines about 
920, silver became gradually more plentiful. The coins 
of Otho III. are especially numerous, — but a reform of 
the currency did not take place until the change of equi- 
librium between the old and new economic systems. A 
change marked by the sack of Constantinople . . . 1204 

And the Mongol invasions. Battle of the Kalka . 1224 

The doge, Henry Dandolo, who sacked Constantinople, 
coined the grosso, 0.965 fine silver and weighing 42^ 
grains. The grosso was the first standard western coin . 1202 

^ See for full details Catalogue des Monnaies Franfaises de la 
Bibliotheque Naiionale, Les monnaies Merovingiennes, Maurice Proa. 
^ Le Monete di Venezia, Papadopoli, 41, 52. 



220 AFFENDTK 

A.D. 

Fifty years later gold appeared. Floreiice coined the 
golden florin, Venice the ducat, and St. Louis the crown, 
between 1 253-1 2S4 

The first half of the thirteenth century was also the 
period of the great development of the Harz, the Bohe- 
mian, and the Tyrolese silver mines. Thirty thousand 
men were employed in the mines of the Tyrol alone.^ 
This was the epoch also when Europe developed the 
highest energy she achieved before the discovery of 
America. It was the era of splendor of the Fairs of 
Champagne, of the Gothic architecture, and of Flanders* 

CHAPTER II 
SECTION I 

In the tenth century the old economic system, of which 
Constantinople and Bagdad were the /ociy culminated. 

Contemporaneously, western Europe fell to the lowest 
point of its decline during the Dark Ages. 

I 

Constantinople reached her greatest splendor during 
the Macedonian dynasty 867-1057 

According to Gibbon, Constantinople actually culmi- 
nated under Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces 963-976 

Splendor of Kieff, from Saint Vladimir to laroslaf the 
Great 972-1054 

Splendor of Bagdad, from Haroun-al-Rashid to Al 
Rhadi 786-940 

SECTION II 

I 

Toward the end of the first half of the tenth century 
the discovery and working of the German silver mines, 

1 Die Geschickie des Eisens^ Ludwig Beck, I., 759. 



APPENDIX 221 

A.D. 
under Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, provided 
the West with a commodity for exchange with the Elast. 
Simultaneously, the full introduction of the mariner^s 
compass led to direct shipments by the ocean from 
China, the Spice Islands, and India to Egypt. Thus 
Mesopotamia and central Asia, Constantinople, Bagdad, 
Bactra, Samarkand, and their like were thrown into 
excentridty, and Alexandria, Venice, Genoa, and the 
Fairs of Champagne became dominant markets. 

Western society in chaos when Henry the Fowler 
succeeded his father as Duke of Saxony . . . 912 

Henry fortified the Harz containing the Rammelsberg 
silver mines (Goslar, Quedlinburg, 929, Nordhausen) 919-929 

Established the Margravate of Brandenburg, invaded 
Bohemia, and began to fortify the line of the Elbe 926-930 

Won great victory over the Huns at Merseburg . . 934 

Otho the Great 936 

Drove Huns from Germany 955 

Otho master of Italy and crowned Emperor by Pope 
John XII. . .' 962 

11 
Rapid Rise of the Cities of the New Economic System 

Bruges walled 960 

Augsburg dated its prosperity from the battle of Lech- 
feld, near Augsburg, when Otho I. defeated the Huns in . 955 

Afterward building considerable additions to the town. 

Venice became mistress of the Adriatic in . . . 1000 

Cologne established a counting-house in London, which 
was the origin of the Steelyard, about .... 1000 

Copious finds of German coins of the reigns of the 
three Othos, especially of Otho III., in the island of 
Gothland, demonstrate the prosperity of Novgorod, 
Wisby, and the dties «of the Hanse, as well as the 
growing abundance of silver in Germany toward the year 1000 

Henry III. held Diet in Nuremberg .... 1050 

St. Quentin chartered 1080 



222 APPENDIX 

A.D. 

Council of Clermont preached First Crusade . . 1095 

First mention of Fairs of Champagne . . . 11 14 

Liibeck founded 1 143 

Vienna became a capital 1156 

Crusade against northern Russia followed by founding 

of Riga and formation of Teutonic Order . . . 1 198 

Dantzic became capital of the Duchy of Pomerellen . 1200 
Bloom of the Fairs of Champagne . • . 1 200-1 300 

III 

Egypt 

Splendor of Egypt began with the building of Cairo 

by the Caliph Maiz ed Din 969 

University of El Azhar founded 988 

Cairo walled 1176 

Culmination of Egyptian power and splendor under 

Saladin 1174-1193 

Mosque of the Sultan Hassan 1356 

IV 

Dedine and Bsdl of the old economic system caused 
by the establishment of a cheap ocean trade-route from 
China direct to the Red Sea. 

Decay of Constantinople indicated by revolution in 

which Alexius Comnenus pillaged the dty . . . 1081 

Sack of Kieff by Andrew, Prince of Suzdal . . 11 69 

Sack and ruin of Constantinople by crusaders . * 1204 
Jenghiz Khan marched from Kashgar on the valley 

of the Syr-Daria 1218 

Mongols ravaged central Asia. Otrar, Bokhara, Samar- 
kand sacked 1219 

Khiva sacked 1220 

Mervy Herat, Bamian sacked 122 1 

Mongols invaded Russia. Battle of the Kalka . . 1224 

Vladimir sacked 1237 

Moscow 1237 



APPENDIX 223 

A.D. 

Kieff 1240 

Battle of Liegnitz, destruction of Gran and devastation 
of the valley of upper Vistula and lower Danube . . 1241 

Settlement of the Golden Horde in southern Russia 

« 

and building of Sarai by Batu about . . . 1245-125 5 



CHAPTER III 

SECTION I 

Migration of the Seat of Empire from the Mediterra- 
nean TO THE Atlantic 

Flanders and the Fairs of Champagne decayed because 
of the movement of the trade-route from Venice, from 
the Rhone and Seine, to the ocean. This displacement 
was the effect of the effort of France to consolidate under 
one administration the valleys of the Rhone, Seine, Loire, 
Garonne, and Scheldt. The wars which ensued, coupled 
with the introduction of the mariner^s compass, caused 
sea freights to undersell land freights. 

Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres reached the summit of their 
fortune contemporaneously with the splendor of the Fairs 
of Champagne and the high fortune of Venice. Trade- 
route, Cairo, Alexandria, Champagne, Bruges, London, 1 200-1 296 

Philip the Fair invaded Flanders .... 1297 

Battle of Courtrai July 11, 1302 

Establishment of packet service between Venice and 
Flanders 1317 

Petition of merchants to avert ruin of Fairs of Cham- 
pagne 1322 

Hundred Years' War, caused by resistance to the ex- 
tension of the administrative system of France over the 
valleys of the Scheldt and the Garonne. The English 
title to Guienne came through Queen Eleanor . 11 52 

Alliance, in consequence, between the Flemish and Eng- 
lish. Van Artevelde and Edward III. acted in unison. 



324 APPENDIX 

A.D. 
Battle of Sluysy in which Edward III. destroyed French 

navy off Zealand 1340 

Battle of Crecy Aug. 25, 1346 

Capture of Calais by Edward III 1347 

Removal of English wool staple from Bruges to Calais 1348 
Bordeaux became the capital of Edward the Black 
Prince 1363 

Beginning of Permanent Decline of Flanders 

Qose of the Hundred Years' War. Charles VII. re- 
gained Paris from the English 1436 

Migration of foreign merchants from Bruges to Ant- 
wexp, rise of Brabant and Antwerp on return of peace 1442 

Extinction of Fairs of Champagne .... 1443 

SECTION II 

Antwerp owed its supremacy to its geographical posi- 
tion. Situated just above the point where the Scheldt 
divides into two branches^ separated by the island of 
Bevelandy the East Scheldt leads to the Rhine, the West 
Scheldt is the direct route to London. Toward France 
the Scheldt now connects with the Oise by canals ; for- 
merly it connected by an easy portage. Antwerp thus 
stood directly between the French and German economic 
systems, being a market for both, as well as for England. 
In 1500, when Antwerp achieved supremacy, Charles V. 
was bom, who represented the German interest all his 
life. On his accession, competition at once acquired the 
intensity of war. The debt Charles contracted in war 
was due to German bankers, and was inherited by Spain. 
Spain, being poor, became insolvent and tried to levy on 
Brabant ; Brabant revolted, Alva laid the country waste, 
Antwerp was sacked and ruined, and England established 
a system of piracy, by which she destroyed, first, the 
resources of Spain, and, second, her navy, in . . 1588 



•AH>ENDIX 225 

A.D. 

Thereupon^ Holland and England seized the ocean 
trade-routes east and west; and modem development 
began with the germination of the British economic sys- 
tem. The first phenomenon was the incorporation of the 
English and Dutch East India Companies. 

Birth of Charles V., Emperor of Germany . . . 1500 

Wealth and power of south Germany at its maximum 
consequent on successful mining .... 1500-15 50 

Charles became King of Spain 15 16 



Contest begun with France for Possession op the 

Dominant Market 

Fuggers bought imperial crown for Charies V. . 15 17-15 19 

Culmination of the wealth and power of the south 
German bankers, especially of the Fuggers . . 1 525-1 560 

Continuous wars between Charles V. and Francis I. 
The first sign of revolt in the Netherlands was the out- 
break in Ghent, consequent on overtaxation . . 1 539-1 540 

Uneasiness of Fuggers and German bankers at the 
growth of debt and at Spanish methods of finance 1 550-1 553 

Desperate condition ai the Spanish and German 
finances and abdication of Charles . . . . 1555 

First Spanish insolvency ...... 1557 

Discontent in Netherlands at pressure of debt • . 1559 



SECTION III 

Outbreak of the beggars in Brabant .... 1566 
Alva governor at Brussels. Sent to extort a revenue, 1 567-1 573 
Devastation of the Low Countries to raise a revenue by 
confiscations. 



Migration of centre of economic system consequent 
thereon. 

Q 



226 APPENDIX 

A.D. 

English Hostility to SpiUN 

Elizabeth seized Spanish treasure .... 1568 
English piratical warfare on Spanish trade-routes was 

waged for a generation 1 560-1 588 

Drake^s Panama expedition 1572 

Mutiny of the Spanish army in the Netherlands because 
of the lack of pay ; poverty of the government caused by 
the cutting of communications by the Dutch and English. 

Antwerp sacked 1576 

Spain, on the brink of disintegration, attacked Eng- 
land. 

Defeat of the Armada 1588 

Rise of HoUand and England following the conquest 
of the trade-routes from the Spanish. 
English East India Company founded . . . 1599 
Dutch East India Company founded . . . 1595-1602 



CHAPTER IV 

SECTION I 

Russia became organized along the east and west trade- 
routes of the Kama and the Volga contemporaneously 
with the supremacy of Antwerp. 

Charles VII. regained Paris toward dose of One Hun- 
dred Years' War 1436 

Migration of merchants from Bruges to Antwerp . . 1442 
Collapse of Fairs of Champagne ..... 1443 
Return of Vasco da Gama from India . . . 1499 
Great fall in price of spice at Lisbon and rise at 

Venice 1 502-1 503 

Supremacy of Antwerp and corresponding depression 
of Venice subsequent to League of Cambrai . . . 1508 

Eastern trade of Venice ruined by occupation by the 
Portuguese of island of Sokotra in the Gulf of Aden 1 506-1509 



APPENDIX 227 

A.D. 

Rise of Moscow 

Ivan III. took title of Autocrat of Russia . . . 1462 

Ivan III. threw off Tartar yoke 1480 

Ivan III. seized the Novgorod counting-house and 

ejected Hanse merchants 1494 

Ivan III. died, having extended Muscovite influence to 

Perm 1505 

Organization of modem Russia under Ivan the Ter- 
rible 1533-1584 

Ivan the Terrible took Astrakhan . . . .1554 
Opened relations with England through Chancellor 15 53-1 5 54 

Russia Company chartered 1555 

Jenkinson^s voyages and growth of English-Russian 

trade 1557-1572 

Russian overland trade to Leipsic and Berlin acquired 
importance 1494-1550 

Siberian Trade-route 

First Russian attack upon the valley of the Obi . . 1499 
Yermak began his invasion of Siberia . t Sept. i, 1581 

Tobolsk founded 1587 

Irkutsk founded . 1651 

Nertchinsk founded 1654 

At Nertchinsk the road turned south to Peking through 
Chinese territory, which could not be conquered. The 
Pacific being closed until the opening of Japan by the 
United States, Nertchinsk formed the natural terminus 
of the overland Russian route. Therefore, by the treaty 

of Nertchinsk, signed Aug. 27, 1689 

Russia abandoned the valley of the Amur, and stopped 
her expansion eastward for nearly two hundred years. 

Meanwhile the Moscow-Peking trade probably was as 
valuable an asset as Russia possessed. Route, Moscow, 
Perm, Tobolsk, Irkutsk, Nertchinsk. In Peter the Great's 
time return caravans from Moscow were "worth from 
300,000 to 400,000 roubles, and in spite of the great dis- 
tance the freight did not amount to more than five per 
cent, of the whole capital.'' ^ 

1 Filer the Greats Schuyler, II., 380, 



228 APPENDIX 

A.D. 

SECTION 11 

Contemporaneous Reorganization of Germany 

The migration of the main trade-route from the Medi- 
terranean to the Atlantic toward 1500 caused the domi- 
nant market to seat itself on the shore of the North Sea, 
and also caused a rise in energy of the movement on the 
east and west lines of transit in central and eastern 
Europe and a proportionate decline in the north and 
south. 

The Hanseatic League, which controlled the north and 
south lines of Germany and Poland and governed Sweden, 
lost power. Sweden correspondingly gained. 
Gustavus Vasa came to the throne .... 1523 
Defeated Hanseatic League and emancipated Sweden 

by treaty of Hamburg 1533 

Strong development of Swedish iron industry from 
treaty of Hamburg to death of Gustavus Adolphus 1 533-1633 

This rise in energy of Sweden decided the result of the 
Thirty Years' War, which ended with the consolidation 
of the nucleus of the modem kingdom of Prussia. 

Thirty Years' War began 1618 

Gustavus Adolphus invaded Germany .... 1630 
Victory of Lutzen, death of Gustavus .... 1632 
Torstenson, Swedish general, defeated Austrians and 

occupied Bohemia 1644 

Peace of Westphalia, by which Frederick William, the 
Great Elector of Brandenburg, gained Farther Pomerania 
and other advantages, laying foundations of Prussia . 1648 

Frederick William acquired Duchy of Cleves and County 
of Mark in the iron region of Westphalia . . 1666 

Prussia became a kingdom 1701 

Seven Years' War and conquest of Silesia by Frederick 
the Great 1763 

Simultaneous Expansion West of Russia 

Peter the Great conquered the Neva from Sweden and 
founded St. Petersburg 1703 



APPENDIX 229 

A.D. 

Gained victory of Pultowa and conquered the Baltic 
Provinces 1709 

SECTION III 

Therefore from the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War 
in 1 61 8 to the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 a 
steady consolidation of Russia and Prussia had gone on^ 
by which Poland had been hemmed in between the east 
and west divisions of the overland economic system. 

Poland 

Poland originally developed along the trade-route north 
from the valley of the Danube to the Baltic. The early 
road to Constantinople from the west lay through Vienna, 
Gran, Bdgrad, and Adrianople. This was the crusading 
route until the thirteenth century. Trade crossing north 
from the Danube to the valley of the Vistula, and so to 
the Baltic, centred at Cracow, on the upper Vistula, as 
the local market, and accordingly Cracow became a 
capital. The kings of Poland were buried in Cracow 

Cathedral from 1 163-1733 

Cracow flourished under Casimir III. . . . 1333-1370 

University established 1364 

Member of Hanseatic League 1430 

Highest prosperity and fame reached under Sigis- 

mund 1 1506-1548 

Copernicus buried at Cracow 1543 

This period of prosperity is coincident with the highest 
prosperity of Augsburg and the Fuggers. 
The Fuggers reached their prime with Anthony Fugger 

I 525-1 560 
The development of the Hungarian and Bohemian 
minerals caused both phenomena. The Fuggers acquired 
large copper properties in Neusohl near Gran ; in connec- 
tion with powerful Hungarian families, they formed a syn- 
dicate for controlling the market, and shipped copper by 
Cracow and the Vistula to Dantzic and Antwerp, instead 



230 APPENDIX 



A.D. 



of, as before, to Venice. Cracow and Antwerp became 

great metal markets from . . . . . . 1494 

Change of the Axis of European Movement 
IN Sixteenth Century 

The change in the axis of European movement from 

north and south to east and west during the sixteenth 

century is clearly indicated by the following series of 

events : — 

Destruction of the Hanseatic House at Novgorod . 1494 

Rise of Leipsic Fairs indicated by grants of privileges 

by Maximilian 1497-1507 

Defeat of Hanse by Sweden and treaty of Hamburg . 1533 
Diversion of fiir trade to Leipsic admitted by Hanse 1 549-1 5 54 

Abdication of Charles V 1555 

Abdication of Charles immediately followed by Spanish 
bankruptcy, and by the first shock to Fuggers^ credit 1 557-1562 

The power of the current east and west is shown by 
the union of Lithuania and Poland and establishment of 

joint diets at Warsaw 1569 

Thenceforward south Germany rapidly declined. 
The Nuremberg Welsers left business about . • 1566 
The Augsberg Welsers were sinking by . . . 1590 
The capital of Poland moved north from Cracow to 

Warsaw in 1609 

The Fuggers weakened steadily under the burden of 
the debt of upwards of 5,000,000 ducats owing them by 

Spain after 1610 

Correspondingly London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw, 
and St. Petersburg rose. 

SECTION IV 
Disintegration of Poland 

Incorporation of Lithuania with Poland. Process b^an 
by accession to the throne of Poland of Alexander, Duke 
of Lithuania, in 1501 

Consolidation completed and diets of Poland and 
Lithuania held at Warsaw 1569 



APPENDIX 23 1 

A.D. 

Sig^smund moved the royal residence to Warsaw . 1609 

This movement was coincident with Thirty Years' War 
and the consolidation of North Germany. 

Thirty Years' War begun by Count von Thum in 
Bohemia 1618 

Continued consolidation of North Germany produced 
the Seven Years' War 1756-1763 

Efforts of France, Russia, and Austria having failed 
to check the consolidation of North Germany in the Seven 
Years' War, the process continued by the absorption of 
Poland. Partitions ^77S-^79S 

As finally settled in 18 15, the upper Vistula, with 
Cracow, adhered to the Danubian system ; the central 
Vistula, with Warsaw, to the Russian ; the lower Vistula, 
with Dantzic, to the German. 

Complete economic isolation of France, caused by the 
junction of Prussia and Russia and the dismemberment 
of Poland. Outbreak of Revolution .... 1789 

Period of destruction of mediaeval social system . 1 789-1 795 

Bonaparte First Consul 1799 

Napoleonic wars began with Marengo . . June 14, 1800 

CHAPTER V 

SECTION I 

France from her geographical position is isolated. She 
forms no part of the overland system, and her long wars 
with Holland and England, from 1672 to 1815, were all 
caused by her attempt to conquer the ocean trade-routes 
between China, India, and America. 

After the sack of Antwerp Amsterdam became the chief 
market of northern Europe, about . . . .1610 

The profits of her trade may be computed by the profits 
of the Dutch East India Company. 

The average dividends of the Dutch East India Com- 
pany were 25 to 30 per cent between . . . 1 606-1661 

Par value of shares was 3000 florins ; market value, 
18,000 florins. 



232 APPENDIX 

A.D. 
The Dutch East India Company owned 150 merchant 

ships, 40 to 50 war-ships, had an army of 10,000 men, 

and divided 40 percent in 1670 

Contemporaneously in 1671 the French company 

showed a deficit of 6,000,000 livres. 

On the death of Mazarin, Colbert became minister of 

finance and addressed himself to building up French 

industries 1661 

Colbert attempted economic reforms in . . . 1664 

And £uled 1664-1667 

Abandoning his attempt to reform internal tariff, he 

resorted to a prohibitive tariff against Holland . 1667 

This proved ineffective, while the great prosperity of 

Dutch shipping and the wealth of the Dutch East India 

Company inclined Colbert to war 167 1 

According to Colbert at this time, ^'of 20,000 ships 

doing the commerce of the world, the Dutch owned 

15,000 or 16,000, the French 500 or 600 at most.^* 
Colbert had the alternative presented to him of 

abandoning his industrial system, and with it his office, 

or of crushing the Dutch. He chose war. 

Dutch war 1672-1678 

Defeat of France and treaty of Nimwegen . . . 1678 

Revolution in England 1688 

Coalition against France formed by William III., which 

lasted substantially till treaty of Utrecht . . . 1689-17 13 

SECTION II 

The French wars proving unsuccessful, competition 
continued unchecked, and, being undersold, the French 
industries fell into decline. The period of splendor of 
the reign of Louis XIV. ended with the Revolution of 
1688 in England. 
Complete industrial prostration in France from . 1700-1715 
After a short industrial revival during the middle of the 
eighteenth century, the introduction of coal in smelting in 
England, which gave England the supremacy in steel, 
put France at a further disadvantage after . . . 1770 



APPENDIX 



233 



A.D. 

The progress of France toward insolvency ended in 

the Revolution in 1789 

The Terror 1793 

Bonaparte pacified the sections at Saint Roch . Oct. 5, 1795 

Napoleon Consul 1799 

Peace of Amiens 1802 

But the equilibrium proved to be unstable. 
The impossibility of successful competition by France 
led to attack on English trade-routes. War renewed . 1803 

As a means to victory the French made their army 
absolute. 
Napoleon Emperor May 18, 1804 



SECTION III 




Wars for Control op Ocean Tradb- 


■ROUTES 


Trafdgar 


Oct. 21, 1805 


Jena . . . 


Oct. 14, 1806 


Berlin Decree' 


Nov. 21, 1806 


Eylau 


Feb. 8, 1807 


Filedland 


June 14, 1807 



Russia capitulated to Napoleon — convention of Tilsit 
signed July 7, 1807 

Napoleon began the encouragement of the beet sugar 
industry as a war measure to destroy the English colonies ^ 1808 

Intolerable distress of Russia from loss of outlets of 
trade 1808-1810 

Ukase admitting American ships into Russian ports, 

Dec. 19, 1810 

Napoleon adopted policy of state encouragement for 
sugar . 1811 



War with Russia 
Napoleon crossed the Niemen 
Retreat from Moscow began 
Waterloo .... 
English economic supremacy 



June 22, 18 12 
June 24, 1812 
Oct. 18, 1812 
June 18, 1 81 5 
. 1815-1873 



^The sugar question is not treated in this volume. For its history 
see Americans Economic Supremacy ^ 54 ei seq. 



234 APPENDIX 

A.D. 

Poverty of the United States until . . ^ . 1848 

Discovery of gold in California 1847 

Rapid development of the United States after the dis- 
covery of gold 1848-1860 

Huge indebtedness of the United States, contracted for 

internal improvements 1 865-1 894 

Continuous attack of the Continent on the West Indian 
sugar ; control of the English market obtained by Conti- 
nental sugar in 1871 

Fall in the price of sugar ruined the West Indies 1868- 1893 
First insurrection in Cuba began .... 1868 
Demonetization of silver by Germany . . . 1873 

Fall in prices from 1873 ^ ^^9^ 

English farming land began to lose its value from . 1879 

Panic of 1893 

Unprecedented exportation of gold from the United 

States 1893 

Fall of 30 per cent in the price of sugar . . 1 893-1 895 
Second Cuban insurrection. 

Signs of exhaustion in English minerals became pro- 
nounced toward 1890 

Readjustment of American social system toward Euro- 
pean competition, by oxganization of so-called trusts, 1 893-1 897 



CHAPTER VI 

SECTION I 

Rise of Japan 

Japan closed to foreigners 1623 

Gold discovered in California 1847 

California ceded by Mexico to United States . . 1848 
Perry sailed from Norfolk for Japan . . Nov. 24, 1852 

Perry reached Yeddo July 8, 1853 

Perry signed first convention with Mikado . Mch. 31, 1854 
Reorganization of Japan began with American com- 
mercial treaty 1858 



-.^f. 



APPENDIX 235 

A.D. 

Stimulated by the opening of Japan, Russia expanded 
along the trade-route of the Amur. MuraviofF negotiated 
the treaty with China which made the left bank of the 
Amur the Russian boundary, and opened the river to 
Russian ships to its mouth .... May 16, 1858 
Muravioff founded Vladivostok on the Pacific . . i860 

Fall of the Shogun 1868 

War between Japan and China .... 1894- 1895 
Interference of France, Germany, and Russia with 
terms of peace; Japanese forced to give up Port Arthur 1895 

SECTION II 

American Supremacy 

American supremacy in steel .... Mar., 1897 

Germans seized Kaiochau Nov., 1897 

Russia occupied Port Arthur .... Dec, 1897 
Hostilities between Spain and Cuba continued without 
definite result, Spanish opinion becoming steadily in- 
flamed against the United States, until the destruction 
of the Maine in Havana harbor . . . Feb. 15, 1898 

The destruction of the Maine was thus a direct effect 
of the attack by the Overland Economic System on the 
English Economic System through the sugar bounties 
which mined the West Indies and caused the Cuban 
insurrection. 1 The sugar bounties were a continuance 
of Napoleon's Continental policy. The catastrophe of 
the Maine made war between Spain and the United 
States inevitable. The disintegration of the Spanish 
Empire followed. Battle of Manila . . . May i, 1898 
Meanwhile the British acquired Wei-hai-wei . April, 1898 
In consequence of the aggressions of Germany and 
Russia insurrection broke out in China in . . June, 1900 
Baron von Ketteler killed and legations attacked, 

June 20, 1900 
Circular note of the State Department . . July 3, 1900 

1 See Americans Economic Supremacy y chapter IIL 



236 APPENDIX 



A.D. 



The European commanders in a council of war decided 
that 80,000 men would be needed before an advance 
could be made on Peking. Despatch to this effect sent to 
Washington by Admiral Kempff .... July 8, 1900 

Tientsin captured by the energy of the Japanese, who 
blew open the south gate. Allies entered the dty July 14, 1900 
General Chaffee reached Tientsin . July 30, 1900 

Conference of generals held on General Chaffee^s arrival 
decided on an immediate advance . . . Aug. i, 1900 

Advance begun, the column about 19,000 strong, Aug. 4, 1900 

Peking occupied Aug. 14, 1900 

Field Marshal von Waldersee, in command of the 
German contingent, reached Peking . . Oct. 17, 1900 



INDEX 



Aden : 71. 

Alexander: campaigns of, 37, 38; 
money of, 39 ; empire of, 166, 167. 

Alva : sent to Brussels, 104 ; govern- 
ment of Netherlands, 105 ; ferocity 
of, 106; remittance to, confiscated 
by Elizabeth, 108 ; recalled, 109. 

America : trade-routes of, 167 ; com- 
parison with England before i860, 
168; gold discovered, 171; impul- 
sion received from, 171; railroad 
system of, 172; panic of 1893, 175 ; 
trusts of, 175; effect of competi- 
tion of, 177 et seq. ; expands into 
Asia, 192; Chinese policy, 193, 
194; superiority of engineers of, 
901; supremacy of, 208; empire 
of, 209. 

Amsterdam : prosperity of, 15a 

Antwerp: prosperity of, 91; threat- 
ened by mutiny, no; Fuggers' 
advances to protect, no; sack of, 
in; migration of merchants to, 
120 ; culmination of, 120, 

Armada: 113. 

Asia, central: cities of, 70; part of 
old economic system, 74; wealth 
of, 74; decay of, 74; destruction 
of, by Mongols, 79 et seq,; see 
ly ode-routes. 

Athens: colonizes Miletus, 21, 22; 
hostility to Corinth, 35; decay of, 
36; mines of Laurium, see Min- 
erals, 

Augsburg: south Germany trade- 
routes converge at, 52; walled, 52; 
a mining centre, 55 ; home of the 
Fuggers, 56; copper interests of, 
57 ; financial capital of south Ger- 
many, 98. 



B 

Babylon: economic system of, 5; 

trade-routes of, 11 ; taken by Per^ 

sians, 30. 
Bactra: 10; routes converging at, 

II. See Balkh. 
Bagdad: decline of caliphs of, 71; 

taken by Jenghiz Khan, 82. 
Balkh : taken by Jenghiz Khan, 81 ; 

trade of, 124. See Badra, 
Bamian: taken by Jenghiz Khan, 

81. 
Bank of England: founded, 133. 
Bapaume : custom-house, 95, Note, 
Berlin: trade-routes of, 140, 146; 

rise of, 140, 147. 
Betlis : description of, 18. 
Bokhara: taken by Jenghiz Khan, 

79 ; visited by Jenkinson, 88, 124. 
Brandenburg: see Prussia* 
Brenner: 58. 
Bruges : rise of, 53 ; base of Hanse, 

73 ; importance of, 93 ; decline of, 

119. 
Byzantine Empire : prosperity o^ 60 ; 

decay of, 61. 



Cairo: founded, 72; walled, 72; 
architecture of, 72 ; capture of, by 
Turks, 85 ; importance of, 86. 

Canals: Oise-Scheldt, 94; Russian, 

143. 
Caravan routes : Ur, 7 ; from Kash- 

gar and Yarkand to India, 9 ; 

through Syr-Daria valley, 9 ; from 

Bactra to Mediterranean, 11 ; India 

to Egypt, II ; fix)m Trebizond to 

Samarkand, 24, 27 et seq. See 

lyade-rouies. 



337 



238 



INDEX 



Carthaginians: invade Sicfly, 34; 

expelled from Spain, 4a. 
Central Asia : see Asia, 
Ceylon : voyage to, 71. 
Champagne : Fairs of, 61 ; tolls, 68 ; 

towns where held, 94; decline of 

Fairs of, 96; yield of Fairs, 119; 

extinction of Fairs of^ 119. 
Chancellor, Richard: voyages, 121, 

132. 

Charlemagne : empire of, 47, 48. 

Charles V, : description of, 92 ; buys 
election, 98; revenues of. 99; paci- 
fies Ghent, 100; abdication of, loi ; 
debts left by, 103. 

Charles XII, : see Sweden, 

Cheops : p3rramid of, 6. 

China: minerals o^ 189; war with 
Japan, 190, 191; revolt in, 192 et 
seq. 

davifOt Ruy Gonzalez de : embassy 
of, 34 ; journey of, 37, 38, 39. 

Chnght Richard : describes Antwerp, 

IPS' 
Colbert: sketch of, 153; industrial 

policy of. 154 ; £ulure of policy of, 

155; hostile to Dutch, 156, 157; 

makes war on Holland, 158; fall 

of, 159. 
Cologne: trade of, 53; Guild Hall in 

London, 53 ; base of Hanse, 73. 
Commercial exchanges: see EX" 

changes. 
Compass: mariner's. 71. 
Constantinople: splendor of, 60; d^ 

cay of, 61 ; sack of, 75. 
Copper : see Minerals, 
Corea : see Korea, 
Corinth : colonized Magna Graecia, 

33 ; routes converging at, 31 ; tem- 
ple of, 31; rise of, 33; hostility to 

Athens, 36. 
Courtrai : battle of, 96. 
Cracow : taken by Mongols. 83 ; 

trade-routes of, 147 ; decay of, 147. 
Crete: excavations in, 13; opulence 

of, 13. 
Crimea : annexation of, 136W 
Crown of Thorns : bought by Saint 

Louis, 76. 



Dampierre, Guy of : 95, 96. 

Dandolo, Henry: sacks Constanti- 
nople, 75. 

Dantxic : acquired by Teutonic Or- 
der, 65. 

Darius : «rars of, 33. 

Denmarh : position of, 63 ; trade- 
route across, 63; war with Hanse, 
66. 

Dijon : river system of, 94. 

Dnieper : trade-route of, 60 ; change 
of route to Volga, 63. See TV-ade^ 
routes, 

Drahe, Sir Francis: expeditions of, 
107; victory off Calais, 113. See 
Piracy, 

Ducats: value of, 89. 



Eastern Question: 194. 

Economic systems: Babylonian, 5; 
Ur, 7; Greek, 34; German, 46, 
X46 ; French, 46, 94 ; old and new, 
74; Flemish, 94; British, 114; for- 
mation of modem, 133; Russian 
and German, 146, 147; Colbert's 
attack on oceanic, 155; Napole- 
on's attack on English, 162; Na- 
poleon's attack on overland, 163; 
Germany's attack on oceanic, 170 ; 
America's attack on overland, 175 ; 
American-Japanese attack on over- 
land, 189. See Trade^outes, 

Egypt : gold and copper of, 5 ; archi- 
tecture of, 6; trade with Chris- 
tians, 54 ; splendor under Saladin, 

73. 
Elbe : defence of, 53 ; trade-route of, 

59 ; tolls on, 68. 
England: prospers by Dutch War, 
107; industrial revolution, 115; su- 
premacy of, 115; trade-routes of, 
134; Napoleonic wars, i6a; great- 
ness of, after Waterloo, 167; su- 
perior water transportation, 168; 
wealth of, 169 ; fall in value of land, 
in, 173 ; freights between Liverpool 
and New York, 173 ; loss of agricul- 
ture, Z74 ; exhaustion of mines of, 



INDEX 



239 



176 ; weakness of, during Boer 
War, 177; adverse exchanges of, 
178, 179 ; seizes Wei-hai-Wei, 192 ; 
in 1850, 202 ; lassitude of, 206, 207. 
En^gebirge : 50. See Minerals, 
Europe : geography of, 45, 46 ; pov- 
erty of in miner^s, 87. 
Exchanges : East and West, 7 ; Sar- 
gon, Assyrian, Babylonian, 12; 
ancient, between East and West, 
40; Roman, 42; American ad- 
verse, 175: English adverse, 174, 
X79. 

F 

Fairs of Champagne: see Cham- 
pagne, 

Flanders : ocean trade to Venice, 69 ; 
rivers of, 93 ; commercial interests 
of, 94 ; fief of France, 95 ; attacked 
by France, 96; effect of war in, 
97; mutiny of troops in, 107, 109; 
packet service to Venice, 119; de- 
cline of, 119. 

Fletcher^ Giles : Russian experiences, 
126, 127, 180, 183. 

Fondaco dei Tedeschi : 54. 

Fouquet: 153. 

France: rivers of, 94; centralization 
of> 95 ; war with Flanders, 96 ; intel- 
lectual rigidity of, 149 ; splendor of, 
imder Louis XIV., 150 ; economic 
weakness of, 151; internal tariffs 
of, 152 ; competition with Holland, 
156; defeated by Holland, 159; 
Revolution, 160 ; war with England 
and Russia, 162 et seq, ; decline of, 
Z16, 202. 

Freights: road and river, 95, note; 
sea to England, 173. 

Puggers : Hans, $6 ; Jacob H., 56 ; his- 
tory of, 56 et seq,; copper mines 
of* 57 ; assets of, in 1527, 57 ; loans 
to Charles for election, 99 ; Anthony 
hates Erasso, loi; advances to 
Philip in 1556, 103; in 1575, no; 
losses at sack of Antwerp, in; 
dealings with Philip about Antwerp, 
109, in; decay of, 112. 

Fkr : see Leipsic^ and Novgorod^ 
and Champagne, 



G 

Germany: geography of, 46; silver 
mines of, 49, 50; manufactures of, 
54 ; police of roads in, 68 ; bankers 
of. 97. 98 ; readjustment of, in 17th 
century, 138, 145; depression in, 
179 ; seizes Kaiochau, 191 ; designs 
of, on Shansi, 192 ; critical position 
of, 201. See Minerals and Trade- 
routes. 

Ghent: importance of, 93; revolt of, 
100. 

Gold: see Minerals, 

Goslar: 50. 

Gran : capture of, 83. 

Great Britain : see England, 

Greece : rise of, 31 ; Mycenean Age, 
31; diverging trade-routes of, 35; 
currency of, 39. 

Greeks : attack Troy, 20 ; legends of, 
21 ; colonization of Euxine by, 22 ; 
of Magna Graecia, 23. 

Gresham, Sir Thomas : coins Spanish 
silver, 108; advises borrowing in 
England, 113. 

Gustavus Adolpkus : 137, 138. 

Gustavus Vasa: 137. 

H 

Hamburg : relation with Lilbeck, 62 ; 
base of Hanse, 73 ; port for Russia, 
140. See Trade-routes, 

Hammurabi: 12. 

Hanseatic League: 53; foundation 
of, 65 ; scope of, 66 ; war with Den- 
mark, 66 ; counter of, at Novgorod, 
67; monopoly of, in Russia, 67; 
trade-routes of, 66, 73 ; power of, 
136; in Sweden, 137; defeat of, 
by Gustavus Vasa, 137, 

Haroun-al-Rashid : 70. 

Harx : 49, 50, 51. 

Henry the Fowler : 50. 

Herat : taken by Jenghiz Khan, 80. 

Himera: 34. 

History : scientific, 195 et seq, 

Holland: independence of, 150; war 
with France, 157, 158, 159. 

Hungarians: defeated by Mongols, 

83. 



240 



INDEX 



Ides, Evert Isbrand: mission of, 134. 

Innocent IIL: crusade against Li- 
vonia, 65. 

Iron: seeAfmerals, 

Ivan IIL: 121; threw off Tartar 
yoke, 121 ; took title of aatocrat, 
121; conquests of, 121; imported 
foreigners, 128 ; Novgorod, 139. 

Ivan the Terrible : reign begins, 121 ; 
opened communication vdth Eng- 
land, 122; cruelty of, 126; con- 
quered Siberia, 131. 



Jade Axes : imported into Europe, x. 

yq^an : opening of, 186, 187, 188 ; 
war with China, 190, 191 ; antago- 
nism to Russia, 195; energy of, 
202.205. 

yenghtM Khan : birth of, 77 ; invades 
China. 78; takes Kashgar, 78; 
spies arrested at Otrar, 78; takes 
Otrar, 79; takes Bokhara, 79; 
takes Samarkand, 79 ; takes Merv, 
80; Nishapur, 80; Herat, 80; 
Balkh, 81; Bamian, 81; Bagdad. 
82. 

yenhinson : sold no cloth in Bokhara, 
88 ; voyages of, iaat-i2S, 

K 

Kashgar: trade-routes of, 9; taken 
by Jenghiz Khan, 78. 

Kieff: splendor of, 60, 62, 117; de- 
cay of, 63; capital of Russia, 64; 
captured by Mongols, 82. 

Korea: invaded by Japanese, 190; 
strategic importance of, 195. 



Laurium: mines of, 35; exhaustion 
of, 36. 

Leipsic : gains fiir trade, 139 ; trade- 
route, Russia and Leipsic, 139; 
fidrs of, 140. 

Liegnitz : battle of, 82. 

Lisbon : prosperity of, 9a 



Uvonia: conquered, 6$; cities o( 

lose fiir trade, 139; conquered by 

Peter the Great, 142. 
Louis IX, : buys Crown of Thorns, 

76 ; invades Egypt, 76 ; surrenders, 

76 ; crusade of, 86. 
IMeck: founding o^ 58; trade of, 

59; relation with Hamburg, 69; 

base of Hanse, 73. 
Lydia : gold of, 15. 

M 

Macedon : gold mines of, 36. 

Maghara: conquest of, by Sneieru, 
4 ; copper mines in, 5. 

Magna Greecia : colonization of, 23. 

Maine : destruction of, 192. 

Marco Polo: route of, la 

Marienburg: 65. 

Maximilian: poverty of, 98; re- 
proves Charles, 98. 

Merv : taken by Jenghiz Khan, 8a 

Metals : see Minerals. 

Miletus: founding of, 22; colonies 
founded by, 22 ; port of Sardis, 23. 

Minerals: importance of, 3; E^;yp- 
tian, 4, s; Maghara copper, 4, 5; 
Nubian gold and iron, 5 ; Cornish 
tin, 14; supply of in antiquity, 14; 
Lydian gold, 15; Athenian silver, 
35 ; influence of on Greek civiliza- 
tion, 35 ; Macedonian, 36; Roman, 
40; ^gean, 41; German silver, 
49 ; silver and copper of Bohemia 
and Harz, 50; &zgebirge, 51; 
copper exported from Venice, 54; 
base of German mediaeval wealth, 
55; South German investment in, 
551 Fuggers' speculation in, 57; 
Hungarian copper, 57; effect of, 
on mediaeval exchange, 64; pov- 
erty of Europe in precious, 87; 
Mexican, 92;. Potosi, 92; Hungari- 
an, Bohemian, and Tyrolese mines 
in 1500, 97; Drake's robberies of 
Spanish, 107; Swedish iron, 137, 
138; Rhenish iron, 145 ; England's 
monopoly of, in coal and iron, 167 ; 
American gold and silver, 170, 171 ; 
decline of English, 176; Califor- 



INDEX 



241 



nian gold, 187; Chinese, 189; 
effect of, on Eastern Question, 191 ; 
American supremacy in steel, 191 ; 
South African, 207. 

Mines : see Minerals, 

Money : see NumismaHcs. 

Mongols : rise of, 77 ; invade Russia, 
82 ; capture KiefT, 82 ; Cracow, 83 ; 
defeat Hungarians, 83 ; reach Scu- 
tari, 83 ; limits of invasion of, 83, 
84 ; trade-routes of, 118. 

Moravieff: foimds Vladivostok, 133, 

Moscow: size in 1590, 127. See 
Trade^otUes, 

N 

Napoleon: competes with England, 
161; Jena campaign, 162; conti- 
nental policy of, 163; treaty with 
Persia, 163; intention to attack 
India, 163; attacks Russia, 164, 
165 ; Moscow campaign, 166. 

Nearchus : voyage of, 8. 

Nertchinsk: fortification of, 132; 
road to Peking, 133; treaty of, 133. 

Netherlands: Philip inherits, loi; 
religion of, loi; emigration from, 
105. 

Nineveh : founded, 12; perished, 12; 
economic system of, 16, 17 ; trade- 
routes of, 17, 18 ; fall of, 3a 

Nishapur : taJcen by Jenghiz Khan, 
80. 

Novgorod: 59; position of, 60 ; mer- 
chants of, in valley of Petchora 
and Obi, 64 ; counter of Hanseatic 
League at, 67; Ivan III. takes, 
139 ; loses fur trade, 139. 

Numismatics: Greek, 39; German 
coins found in Wisby, 53 ; depre- 
ciation of French and English coin- 
age, 88 ; ducat, value of, 89. 

Nuremberg: rise of, 52; manu&o- 
turers of, 55 ; famous bankers of, 
55 ; financial capital, 98. 



Oise: trade-route, 94; see footnote, 
94. 



Orange ^ William of: league against 

France formed by, i6a 
Orenburg : founded, 135. 
Otho I, : 50, 51. 
Olho III, : coinage of, 53. 
Otrar : capture of, 79. 



PanHcapattm : founded, 22; gold 
ornaments of, 22. 

Paris : river system of, 94. 

Pattala : trade-route to Egypt from, 8. 

Peking: Russian route to, 133; oc- 
cupied by allies, 194. 

Peloponnesian War: 36. 

Perry ^ Commodore: visits Japan, 
187, 

Persians : decrepitude of, 81. 

Peter the Great : accedes, 133 ; con- 
ditions at accession of, 133; an- 
nexes Syr-Daria, 135; Pultowa, 
142; founds St Petersburg, 143; 
canals, 143; visits Caspian, Z43; 
reforms of, 143, 144. 

Philip of Spain : accession of, loi ; 
insolvency of, 103. 

PhUippi : mines of, 36. 

Philip the Pair: accession of, 95; 
war in Flanders, 96; defeat at 
Courtrai, 96 ; effect of war, 97. 

Phocas, Nicephorus : 72. 

Phasnicians: rise of, 14; discover 
tin, 14. 

Piracy : English, against Spain, 108. 

Plataa: battle of, 35. 

Poland: geography of, 47; partition 
of, 146, 147 ; change of trade-routes 

of, 147- 

Potosi : mines of, 92. 

Prussia : rise of, 138 ; trade-routes of, 
138, 139; gains Pomerania, 145; 
foundation of, 145; gains Cleves 
and Mark, 145; Silesia, 146; East 
and West trade-routes of, 146. 

Pultowa: 142. 



QuedUnburg: 50,51. 



242 



INDEX 



RammeUherg: 49, 5a 

Rhine : trade-route o^ 59; tolls on, 
68. 

Riga : founded, 65. 

Romans: incapacity of, 40; defeat 
of, in Germany, 43; mental inflezi> 
bility of, 44. 

Russia : geography of, 47 ; Constan- 
tinople dominant market of, 63; 
Kieff and Vladimir capitals of, 
64: Hanse holds monopoly in, 67 ; 
Mongols invade, 82 ; rivers of, 116 ; 
disintegration of, in 13th century, 
Z17; Ivan occupied Narva, ia8; 
trside-routes under Peter, 133, 134; 
consolidation of, under Peter, 135 ; 
Swedish war, 142; administration 
of, under Peter, 144; breach with 
France, 165 ; poverty of, 180, 181 ; 
bad administration in, 181 etseq,; 
suffering in, 183; civil service of, 
183; Siberian Railroad, 184; hos- 
tility to Japan, 186; interferes in 
Chinese war, 191; seizes Port 
Arthur, 193; designs on Shansi, 
193; weakness of, 193; antago- 
nism to Japan, 195; culmination 
of, 199. See TVade^ouUs, 

Russia Company : laa ; counting- 
houses of, 135, 126. 

Russians : backwardness of, Z28 ; not 
mechanical, 129. 

S 

Saladin: 73. 

Salamis : 34. 

Samarkand : description of, 39 ; 
taken by Jenghiz Khan, 79; see 
TV-ade^outes. 

Sarai : built, 118. 

Sardis : routes to, 15. 

Sargon : empire of, 7 ; capital of, is. 

Scheldt: trade-route, 94; and note. 

Scutari : Mongols reach, 83. 

Sepiimer Pass : 59. 

Shansi : mines of, 189. 

Siberia : conquest of, 131-133 ; trade- 
routes of, 131, 133; rivers of, 133; 
Siberian Railroad, 184, 185. 



Silver: increase in value o^ 87; 
yield of American, 93; demoneti- 
zation of, 170; see Minerals, 

Sinai : see Maghara. 

Sindbad : voyages of, 70. 

Sneferu : 4 ; pyramid of, 6. 

Sokoira : Portuguese occupy, 91. 

Spain: mines of, 41; rise of, 90; 
poverty of, 99 ; character of people 
of, 104; decentralization of, 106, 
107 ; losses by piracy, 108 ; recog- 
nizes independence of Holland, 
150; war of United States with, 
193. 

SUefyard: 53, 54. 

St, Petersburg : founded, 143. 

St, Quentin : position of, 94. 

Suzdal: 63. 

Sweden : war with Hanse, 137 ; iron 
industry of, 137, 138; energy of, 
138; greatness of, 141; war with 
Russia, 141, Z43. 



Tabris: 37,28. 

Teutonic Order: foundation of, 65; 
acquires Dantdc, 65. 

Tiglat-Pileser /., ///. ; campaigns 
of, 17, 19. 

Tin : see Minerals, 

Trade-routes : basis of states, 2, 3; 
competitive, 2 ; the Ur, 7 ; Pat^a, 
8; Lake Balkash, 9; Samarkand, 
9; Terek Pass, 9; Syr-Daria, 9; 
Kashgar, 9; Bactra, 10; northern 
Indian, 10; three leading ancient, 
11; Tyre and Sidon, 11; Crete, 
Carthage, Cadiz, 11; Phoenician, 
14; Lydian, 15; Lake Van, 17; 
Betiis, 17; Tabriz, 18; Greek, 22, 
23; Black Sea, 26; Athens and 
Corinth, 35 ; mediaeval European, 
45, 46, 47 ; converge at Augsburg, 
52; Semmering and Brenner, 58; 
Rhine and Elbe, 59; Kieff-Nov- 
gorod, 60 ; LUbeck and Hamburg, 
62; northern movement of, in 
Russia, 63 ; Volga, 64 ; Hanseatic, 
66; to Champagne, 68; sea, to 
Venice and Flanders, 69 ; ocean, to 



INDEX 



243 



China, 71 ; Eastern after 1200, 73 ; 
eastern branch at Nile, 73 ; North 
Sea, 73; Da Gama's, 90, 91; 
Scheldt and Seine, 93, 94 ; closing 
of, to Champagne, 96 ; superseded, 
97; English, 115; Russian, 116; 
Mongol, 118 ; Samarkand, 118 ; 
extension of Russian, under Ivan 
III., 121; by White Sea, lai, 122, 
Moscow to Persia, 122, 125; de- 
scribed by Jenkinson, 130; Sibe- 
rian, 131, 133; Nertchinsk, 133; 
English, 134 ; Moscow-Peking, 134 ; 
Moscow-Samarkand, 135; Mos- 
cow, Berlin, Hamburg, 140, 147; 
Peter opens route to Caspian, 143 ; 
Polish, Warsaw, 146, 147 ; Cracow, 
Vistula, 147 ; Napoleon's attack on 
English, 161; problem of Napo- 
leon and Alexander concerning, 
166; American, 167; America and 
Japan, 187 ; Korea flanks Russian, 

195- 
Thave: 62. 

Troy : siege of, oo, 

T^oyes : 94. 

7)^e : siege of, 37, 38. 

U 
United States : see America, 
Ur:j\ economic system of, la. 



Van: Lake, z6; description of, 17, 
19. 

Van Artevelde : 97. 

Vasco da Gama : effects of discovery 
of, 86 ; lucrative voyage of, in 1503, 
91. 

Venice r rise of, 52 ; port of Germany 
on Mediterranean, 54 ; trade-routes 
of, 58; ocean trade to Flanders, 
69; decline of, after 1500, 90; in- 
jured by closing of Red Sea, 91. 

l^adimir: 64. 

Vladivostok: founded, 133; troops 
sent to, by sea, 185. 



W 

Warsaw: 147. 

William o/Rubruck : 10. 

Wisfy : importance of, 53. 



Xerxes : wars of, 34. 



Yarkand: 9. 

Yermak: conquers Siberia, Z3X. 



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